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1. Embed this notice
   Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Tuesday, 30-Sep-2025 18:39:06 JST Aral Balkan

   • Joy

   There are a couple of anonymous cowards on Mastodon telling people that all Palestinians you see here are fake and that the Internet there doesn’t work at all and spamming the #fediblock hashtag to get my Mastodon instance defederated so they can silence me and the work we are doing with @joynewacc (a real person from Palestine, can you believe that?) on Gaza Verified.

   I hope they get what they deserve for their genocide denial (which makes them complicit in genocide as genocide denial is the last and final stage of genocide) and the harm they are trying to inflict on people already suffering from genocide and famine.

   Truly, they are the worst of humanity.

   Meanwhile, here we are, holding video calls with Palestinian families in Gaza to ensure that one of the last lifelines they have on the Internet remains open to them.

   https://gaza-verified.org

   #GazaVerified #Gaza #Palestine #israel #fediAid #israel #genocide #genocideDenial https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/115292542346226981

   • Embed this notice
     Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Tuesday, 30-Sep-2025 19:19:58 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     • Jack Yan (甄爵恩)
     • Joy

     @jackyan @joynewacc Thank you so much for doing that.

     And yes, these people, while I cannot understand the depravity that drives them, will not succeed.

     I know it might not seem like it given the state of the world but truth and humanity still count for something. And they will not be allowed to snuff out their light.

     💕

   • Embed this notice
     Jack Yan (甄爵恩) (jackyan@mastodon.social)'s status on Tuesday, 30-Sep-2025 19:19:59 JST Jack Yan (甄爵恩)

     in reply to

     • Joy

     @aral @joynewacc Thank you for doing your amazing work. I know it is difficult. I helped raise funds for one friend in Rafah, and while most people were pretty good, there was, of course, one guy (a dude from Israel) questioning whether my friend was real, and even if he was, the routes out of Rafah were blocked. He went to my friend’s website, posted a photo of him, trying to make the effort questionable. This dude failed, we raised the money, and my friend and his family are in Cairo.

   • Embed this notice
     Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Tuesday, 30-Sep-2025 21:57:54 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     • Jack Yan (甄爵恩)
     • Joy

     @jackyan @joynewacc If we’re going to change things, we’re going to do it together, Jack, all of us who care; each contributing their small bit to the effort 💕

   • Embed this notice
     Jack Yan (甄爵恩) (jackyan@mastodon.social)'s status on Tuesday, 30-Sep-2025 21:57:55 JST Jack Yan (甄爵恩)

     in reply to

     • Joy

     @aral @joynewacc It was a fraction of what you both are doing so I admire your efforts hugely.
     Depravity is an appropriate word, with their treating human beings with such contempt.
     I believe humanity will win out thanks to people like you.

   • Embed this notice
     Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Wednesday, 01-Oct-2025 01:50:18 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     • Joy
     • liberonova

     @liberonova @joynewacc 💕

   • Embed this notice
     liberonova (liberonova@mastodon.social)'s status on Wednesday, 01-Oct-2025 01:50:20 JST liberonova

     in reply to

     • Joy

     @aral @joynewacc Thank you for your good work

   • Embed this notice
     Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Wednesday, 01-Oct-2025 16:24:44 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     • Antimundo
     • Joy

     @antimundo Thanks.

     So, first off, no verification process can 100% guarantee that everything a person says is true.

     In the video calls, @joynewacc joins me and, being from Gaza, she can immediately tell if the person is speaking the Palestinian dialect.

     Beyond that, we ask for outside views. Again, it’s rather easy to tell when you’re shown around a tent city with the sounds of drones overhead. (Either they’re in Gaza or a Hollywood-grade film studio.)

     There are also other checks we are implementing as we go but I am not going to reveal those at this point.

     To put it into perspective, this immediately separates the non-Gazans from the Gazans. Are there one or two Thénardiers left? Perhaps. But we are evolving ways of detecting that (not least of all because we now have a trusted group of people in Gaza to help).

   • Embed this notice
     Antimundo (antimundo@mastodon.gamedev.place)'s status on Wednesday, 01-Oct-2025 16:24:45 JST Antimundo

     in reply to

     • Joy

     @aral @joynewacc I ask in good faith, but how can you guarantee through a video call that they actually live in Palestine and are not just random people pretending to live there?

     I appreciate your work, I just would like to know how you avoid fraud regarding this.

   • Embed this notice
     Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Wednesday, 01-Oct-2025 18:31:48 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     • Antimundo
     • Joy

     @antimundo @joynewacc Will do. Just have a todo list the size of my arm. But yes, it’s a priority :)

   • Embed this notice
     Antimundo (antimundo@mastodon.gamedev.place)'s status on Wednesday, 01-Oct-2025 18:31:49 JST Antimundo

     in reply to

     • Joy

     @aral @joynewacc thanks for the answer! I think you should talk about this verification process in the website, since I showed it to some friends and they didnt really trust the accounts were legit, and probably more people will have doubts about this!

     Not your fault tho, there are many pro-israel propaganda accounts crating fake content related to gaza, and it has become hard to trust what gaza content is legit.

   • Embed this notice
     Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Thursday, 09-Oct-2025 10:09:59 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     • Danny

     @danny Could you try being less of a cunt?

   • Embed this notice
     Danny (danny@social.sutcliffe.xyz)'s status on Thursday, 09-Oct-2025 10:10:00 JST Danny

     in reply to

     • Joy
     • Alaa
     @alaamoh @joynewacc @aral no
   • Embed this notice
     Alaa (alaamoh@mastodon.social)'s status on Thursday, 09-Oct-2025 10:10:01 JST Alaa

     in reply to

     • Danny
     • Joy

     @danny @joynewacc @aral can you help me please 🙏

   • Embed this notice
     Danny (danny@social.sutcliffe.xyz)'s status on Thursday, 09-Oct-2025 10:10:02 JST Danny

     in reply to

     • Joy
     @aral @joynewacc I once got a DM from someone through matrix who was claiming to be from there, I didn't believe them so I led them to my site to see what IP connected in my site's logs, and lo and behold the IP was actually in Gaza. Showed me, I guess. Or perhaps they just have a VPN sat there, who knows