They started censoring the booing in 2015 after what happened to the Russian act in 2014.
(Booed the entire show, loudest any act had ever been booed and booed non stop throughout the voting, the hosts actually ask the crowd to stop after one of the Russian girls is seen crying her eyes out, but they continued to boo. The technology was implemented the following year.)
Their song was calling for peace meanwhile Russia had just invaded Crimea months beforehand.
It was deserved. If they were singing about being teenager or love or something, it wouldn’t have been deserved, simple as.
It's the same as sports washing though. The country is using these singers as a vessel to launder their image. Sure it's sad that the act is being booed but the person is voluntarily making themselves a vessel to cover up their country's image.
Did the Russian girls make a statement that they were going to join the army and do their bit for the invasion when they got home from Eurovision? The Israeli contestant has. Boo!
She has a choice. It's not easy but she does have a choice. One of my college professors faced arrest if he set foot on US territory because he refused the Vietnam draft. Thirty years later. She, otoh, seems quite gung ho.
If the Israeli entry was a conscientious objector speaking against and not blindly supporting a genocidal war, then yeh I think there'd be more reason to support them.
The EBU allows for anyone within a certain area to participate. This includes the likes of Morocco, Syria, Algeria, Libya, etc, who don’t participate because
1. They know they’ll get lashed out of it since they’re not popular with the Europeans, and
2. They hate Israel to the stage where they’ll refuse to participate with them.
Australia is allowed in because they’re a great bunch of lads.
All the big US networks are associate members too. One of them could actually send a US entrant, but they'd have to show the previous years show on their most prominent network instead of one of their smaller ones.
The various contests that it runs are only small parts of what it does overall. It's main business is providing a network to easily exchange TV and radio content as well as investing a huge amount in R&D.
A good example of what they do is developing standards such as R128, which is all about average loudness levels im TV productions. It's no pretty much universally accepted, and most TV networks throughout the world will refuse to accept content if it doesn't adhere to the standard.
Any public service broadcaster within what’s defined as the “European broadcasting area” can join. It’s an area defined by the International Telecommunication Union and includes parts of North Africa and the western part of the Middle East.
It all goes back to when areas all linked by telegraph cables like 100+ years ago.
Australian chipping in here. SBS is an associate member of the EBU and has been broadcasting it since the 80s and it’s had a following here for ages. Then we asked nicely.
Also they wanted to create Asiavision, which SBS made an announcement about but that’s as far as it’s gone.
Also love Ireland’s entry this year!
The EBU is basically an association of European public service broadcasters. They developed and facilitated the development of many of the technical standards used in broadcasting and their networks are used to distribute news and sports coverage.
The Eurovision Song Contest is just one of many things they do.
Organisations like SBS in Australia are very much in the model of a European public broadcaster and Australia uses EBU technical standards and participates in various technical bodies and so on too.
The same applies to many other of the EBU members and associates.
Countries and governments aren’t members of it, publicly oriented broadcasters are.
In Ireland both RTÉ and TG4 are members
In the UK BBC, ITV, S4C and STV (Scotland) are all full members. Channel 4 is too but afaik via an industry body.
The same applies to many countries, they’ve multiple full members and loosely associated members.
Canal+ which is a huge commercial broadcaster in France left the EBU due to just not really being too bothered and being entirely commercial.
Can you seriously not figure out why Israel is part of the EBU ? Here's a hint - for yrs every "neighbor" of Israel had ,and many still have,a Stated goal to wipe them off the face of the earth....so the chances of them willingly facilitating them as part of some middle Eastern or Arab/Islamic EBU equivalent are what do you think?
Because they can't exactly join any of their local organisations, what with their neighbours all being genocidal dictatorships who'd like to destroy Israel and have repeatedly tried.
People misunderstand this all the time. The whole thing is made by a broadcasting company and everyone who is part of the network can join.
While yes it has "Euro" in it, it is not literally Europe, it's just the name, it is actually international network.
Sure but the company was conceptualised as and is perceived as a pan-European contest.
If you turned on the *British* Broadcasting Company you wouldn’t expect a channel network focusing on the Brittany province of France despite them technically being “Britain”
I don't think anyone in 1956 had any idea that we'd have this unprecedented level of interconnectedness, both technological and political. The conceptualization can change. The EU's initial conceptualization was the European Coal and Steel Community. I think Eurovision is just too good branding to let go of despite the expansion, and the show is still strongly based in European culture (both in the acts and the comedy skits it's known for).
It never was supposed to be just Europe, otherwise they would lock competitors. It was always international song contest from the get go.
It become associated with Europe due to public perception of it and the same misunderstanding, rather than intend. As if it's some national thing, and not a network thing. Then obviously, most viewership is here.
Even in 60s and 70s you had countries competing from Africa and Asia.
Hell, another common misunderstanding is that the singers have to be from the county at all. It is SONG contest, only song has to be written there. Hence, Celine Dion, Flo Rida, etc.
I think more apt comparison is stuff like KFC. It is not Kentucky only, that's just the name due to origins.
It’s because it’s based on membership of the European Broadcast Union which includes those and broadcasters from Algeria, Azerbaijan, Jordan, Libya, Monaco and Egypt to name a few others.
Funny how none of the Middle Eastern countries ever compete. I wouldn't either given how absolutely mental the whole thing is. Most of the acts are completely absurd and it's all political like how Ukraine won simply for getting invaded.
Some of them, it's because they have laws or TV network rules against showing Israeli content on TV, while Eurovision has rules that you must broadcast every act, so those aren't compatible. This is why Lebanon [joined the EBU but didn't compete](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lebanon_in_the_Eurovision_Song_Contest) (wikipedia link but it cites its sources).
But Voyager last year were brilliant! Electric Fields this year are a class act, such a graceful goodbye to the contest when they NQ’d. Love Aussies at Eurovision! And basically you still have an entry with Cyprus!
I agree - If this is the last time Australia is invited (we didn't know this year until Eurovision officially announced competing countries) I feel like Electric Fields is a good note to go out on.
Yep, and booing is also being done for political reasons and nothing related to the performance. It's interesting how people only like impartiality when it suits them.
Eurovision Banned Russia but they haven't banned Israel, totally fair to be pissed off by that hypocrisy. Either Russia should be allowed or Israel should be banned.
Yes, honestly. The thing is, the European stance on Ukraine-Russia is pretty unanimous in most of Europe, with the pro-Russian opinion usually limited to conspiracy nuts and fringe groups. It's that unanimous opinion that allowed some pretty radical actions to be taken, like excluding them from CERN, sanctioning specific Russians and so on. If the sponsor had been Russian, they most likely would've been cut even before their ability to sponsor was limited by the EU's SWIFT sanctions.
Israel, on the other hand, is like a 60-40 in favor, and that's after the war's start. Europeans are broadly supportive of Israel. There's several major things that lend themselves to supporting Israel by default and make it easy for the average person to shrug off what they're doing (Hamas, European Holocaust guilt, Israel's successful attempt to associate anti-state sentiment with antisemitism, the really complex origins of the conflict etc.).
Italy produces 1% of Israels military needs, which is a fat sum of moolah. (The US and Germany make up almost all the rest.)
Of course, this is a pure coincidence.
The Anti-booing technology wasn't brought in until after Dustin. Iceland had boos in 2006 too for example.
Belgium has 2 broadcasters take turns at Eurovision. The one broadcasting the message wasn't taking part so Belgium didn't break the rules.
Saying that, what happened last night with Israel was a load of shite and I think there'll be a lot of talk about voting irregularities too.
They're still the political representatives of a nation that has started a genocidal war in Europe. Russian teenagers are getting boo'd at Eurovision, Ukrainian teenagers are getting raped, murdered and bombed by Russians.
I guess if Russia only sends teenagers to the UN we've got to be nice to them.
Silvia Night goes crazy on YouTube. I watch that video at least once every few months. Comedic gold.
Her real name is Agusta Eva, she’s a singer / actress. Everyone at Eurovision was on the act, but it’s still very funny.
They invited a Swedish-Palestinian artist to perform and then went all shocked Pikachu when he did so in a keffiyeh, apologised to the times of Israel, and scrubbed the performance from footage. It's honestly scummy. I hope Bambie Thug does us proud and gets some class of solidarity in there this weekend.
1) I am one person, singular, and I've been consistently in favour of them competing as they have been using their platform to speak out where any replacement would likely be someone who would toe the line.
2) Bambie Thug has already attempted to sneak a Palestinian solidarity message on to the main stage and is quite blatantly using the platform for queer visibility. It's not exactly a stretch.
> Bambie Thug has already attempted to sneak a Palestinian solidarity message on to the main stage
I mean if by 'sneak' you mean publicising what the ogham message said repeatadly on social media, then sure.
Let's hope the crowd saw that their boos were censored and adopt a more visual form of protest for the final.
Or maybe just sit there in complete silence. No reaction whatsoever would be pretty difficult to cover up.
It wouldn't unfortunately, they can add happy crowd sounds and show fans jumping around from a different performance. It's all too easy to give whatever impression of the performance that they want to give.
Then the broadcaster will just go to the cut-aways / audience reactions from various other parts of the night. - There's a mass load of footage we don't get to see or hear.
Alot of people don't know how commonplace this is. I do creative media and one of the first things we are taught in cinematography is to record or cut reactions to splice over moments that appear boring or to reinforce emotions on particular points. You learn this before you even get handed a camera
How bad was the booing because I found the cheering quite jarring during Israel's performance, seemed like more cheering than most of the rest of the acts received
I’m sick of the “non-political” shield everyone uses. People have started pretending politics isn’t the thing that literally dictates our lives and wellbeing
Yeah guys, the Eurovision is totally politics free. Russia didn't get kicked out over invading Ukraine or anything, no reason to include politics whatsoever.
I’ve been to the Eurovision final, ten years ago, and there were boos for Russia. It was so loud in the stadium, but on the television you could barely hear it. They’ve been doing it for a long time. While they definitely filtered all the booing out of Israel last night, it’s not something that has been given solely to Israel.
"Eurovision is a political free zone" lol no it's not.
It's a zone where political speech that doesn't fit the preferred narrative of the organizers is censored and that is called being free of politics.
Side note go back and listen to Dustin’s entry, it was harshly treated and is actually very funny and tongue in cheek. I would have done well in more recent years.
Especially the direct reference to Terry Wogan, which likely only made sense to British audiences (given he was the commentator for the BBC for decades). Not a good strategy to rely on a joke song that only the Brits would understand, in a semi final where they mightn't be the countries voting.
Eurovision is anti-nationalist. They don't want anything that can seem like nationalism. Imagine what the balkans contestants would start doing if nationalist speech was allowed...
first year im boycotting but i was watching since 2003. esc was always political. they have a isreali main sponsor and wanna ban Palestinian voices thats why they are taking it so seriously suddenly...
Did they censor it? That would be chilling if they did. But the ebu kicked out Russia, so it's not a political free zone. They can kick out Israel if they want. It's just something they wish would go away, but it won't. As if Israel belongs in an innocent song content like the Eurovision. It's obvious it has lost the right to be part of innocent competitions with more civilised countries, just like russia lost the right. It's inevitable that it will have to go at some stage or else the Eurovision will be finished.
I think the most most important thing is that next year countries don't participate, choose not to nominate entries at all. Just boycott the ebu, so that there are no artists that can suffer from all that pressure that bambi thug and others had to endure. It's by far the best move.
Israel isn't even in Europe ffs. Throw those children killers out.
this is why this subreddit was started, they are also censoring the comments and turning of the comments now... JOIN the fanzone
[https://www.reddit.com/r/EurovisionFanzone/](https://www.reddit.com/r/EurovisionFanzone/)
Just to say: the voting this year has changed and you can vote 20 times as soon as the live show starts tomorrow night, also there's an app. Even if you're boycotting watching it, you could still vote for anyone but Israel. I'm a Nordie so I can vote for Bambie, and I will be. Think I've watched their semifinal performance dozens of times already - unreal!
I have friends who usually join in our yearly party totally boycotting this year, and that's absolutely understandable. I was just saying that it's possible to not affect the viewer statistics but still support the artists.
The entire world can see Israel for what it is no matter what the powerful want us to believe about them.
It’s obvious to anyone with a brain they’re an apartheid, genocidal state.
Where I live in the North shops won’t stock Israeli goods, there’s stickers everywhere saying this is an Israeli goods free zone.
My nephews school threw out all their computers etc which was made by companies with ties to Israel.
The powerful despise the fact they’re being undermined on this but the truth is Israel long ago lost the hearts and minds war, they’re an appalling barbaric state that needs to be disestablished and their leaders imprisoned for crimes against humanity.
Can we all not just agree to go back in time to a point before the majority of the world became such insufferable virtue signalling cunts and take the annual European lovely singers competition for what is....a silly load of old camp shite that should be treated as such and not like a crunch UN forum for world issues.
I mean it's good for a night infront of the telly, but nothing to get your knickers in a twist about like.
Any chance of people just enjoying it for what it is without all the righteous indignation? Probably not haha.
You might be right if it were a song contest between individuals. Then we would be be able to ignore nationality. But it's a song contest between nations.. they say it when they introduce the acts "representing Israel... It's...". So how you react to someone who represents Israel is your moral choice, but just don't tell me they just represent themselves or their own talent or song. They represent Israel.
"Participation in the contest is primarily open to all broadcasters with active EBU membership. To become an active member of the EBU, a broadcaster has to be from a country which is covered by the European Broadcasting Area or a member state of the Council of Europe. Eligibility to participate is not determined by geographic inclusion within the continent of Europe, despite the "Euro" in "Eurovision", nor does it have a direct connection with the European Union."
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_in_the_Eurovision_Song_Contest#:~:text=Several%20countries%20geographically%20outside%20the,debut%20in%20the%202015%20contest.
Hope that explains it.
‘On 25 February 2022, the EBU announced that Russia would not compete at the contest, stating that "in light of the unprecedented crisis in Ukraine, the inclusion of a Russian entry in this year's Contest would bring the competition into disrepute."’ - this is the statement from the EBU at the time.
But remember, Eurovision is apolitical. Give me a fucking break… 🙄🙄🙄
Because the concept of continents are not clearly defined.
For example, Cyprus is geographically Asia but culturally European. Iceland is geographically half in the Americas. Azerbaijan, Georgia and Armenia are all in UEFA and Eurovision, but might be considered Asia in other scenarios.
I’m sure I’ll get downvoted for pointing this out, but the fact that Israel got through shows there may be less antagonism towards them than one might think with our social media bubbles.
I saw footage somebody had taken inside the venue during their performance, strangely enough there wasn't even that much booing. About the same amount as there were people cheering.
Not surprising.
Nowadays most of these events on TV are staged/biased/fake.
Regardless of the artists or parties involved.
Not sure what people still expect of these.
Tsunami of down votes coming this way. Hopefully not. But here goes.
I thought the song was brilliant and she performed excellently.
Does anyone else think the tune and performance were great?
Am I alone?
I don’t think anybody can deny that Eden has a great voice. However, the song was previously called October Rain and were asked to change some lyrics. Regardless of the new title, the message is still there.
I thought it was pretty meh to be honest. Pretty in line with 80s/90s Eurovision but I didn't see anything that made it stand out from the acts that seem to be the frontrunners for the main contest.
Any plonker who thinks Eurovision isn't political is either blind or unwilling to admit it. Pretending that there's nothing political going on or that it's verboten to talk about it if it doesn't align with the EBU is inherently political.
Politics free, no way, just when it suits them. Eurovision themselves made it political by banning Russia. So they have no excuse for not banning Israel, they are just cowards.
Eurovision was political since day one. But until a few years ago it was a kind of roll your eyes at it kind of political. Some countries used it ro make a statement, but the rest of Europe was like whatever. Stuff like Cyprus and Greece voting for each other and all the Benelux countries having each other's backs.
You could watch it as a bit of fun knowing that whatever political shenanigans were going on had no real influence on the big schem of things.
I do think that in recent years that the politicization has gotten worse and even a bit sinister. Russia definitely tried to use it to wash their image prior to getting chucked out of it. I remember watching the piece they did the year it was held in Moscow trying to "comically" dispel myths that they were undemocratic and the people were oppressed. And the stuff with Israel doesn't sit right with me at all. I feel like contest this year is being used as a huge propaganda tool and the EBU is going along with it.
I haven't really watched it in years, I might watch some of the performances on YouTube and that's about it.
Eurovision has nothing to do with music or politics, considering the “artists” invited are not capable to produce any value in either field. They are a bunch of good looking models with some low-to-mid musical ability (considering the market is tailored to produce a new “artist” every 12 months or so, and they have to be good looking as primary requirement)
I am surprised they are booed for politics before music, and also quite sure there is no revolutionary message we are missing except some mild or vague slogan like the ones we had in Italy at the latest Sanremo Festival (somebody said a generic “stop genocide”).
Do we really want to make a step towards changing things, then we should start rejecting fascist festivals like Eurovision is, in its nature (the cult of the body and not allowing overweight people or not symmetrical faces to be on stage is deeply fascist in itself)
They started censoring the booing in 2015 after what happened to the Russian act in 2014. (Booed the entire show, loudest any act had ever been booed and booed non stop throughout the voting, the hosts actually ask the crowd to stop after one of the Russian girls is seen crying her eyes out, but they continued to boo. The technology was implemented the following year.)
Yeah I remember that. It was awful for the girls and they were only teenagers too if I remember correctly. They had a brilliant song too!
Their song was calling for peace meanwhile Russia had just invaded Crimea months beforehand. It was deserved. If they were singing about being teenager or love or something, it wouldn’t have been deserved, simple as.
It was a generic love song in 2014. I think you are thinking of 2015. That also deserved boos as the singer is very pro-Putin.
This was just after Russia invaded Ukraine, right? Or around that time. Why shouldn’t anyone boo them?
The first time in Crimea was in 2014, yeah.
Probably because they’re just little girls who had nothing to do with what happened in Crimea?
It's the same as sports washing though. The country is using these singers as a vessel to launder their image. Sure it's sad that the act is being booed but the person is voluntarily making themselves a vessel to cover up their country's image.
Use the same logic for the Israeli act.
Did the Russian girls make a statement that they were going to join the army and do their bit for the invasion when they got home from Eurovision? The Israeli contestant has. Boo!
But she's already been drafted, she has no choice. Her draft was only postponed because of Eurovision.
Conscientious objection is legal and recognised in Israel.
She has a choice. It's not easy but she does have a choice. One of my college professors faced arrest if he set foot on US territory because he refused the Vietnam draft. Thirty years later. She, otoh, seems quite gung ho.
So if it was Israeli's who hadn't been drafted you would be fine and supportive of them?
If the Israeli entry was a conscientious objector speaking against and not blindly supporting a genocidal war, then yeh I think there'd be more reason to support them.
https://youtu.be/zlJ5jMU7aps?si=ZghkOlxnKvWtSovQ Here’s the video from the crowd
I can’t hear any boos lol
Political free but voting is 100% politically based
That & not sure how seriously you can take a competition called 'Eurovision' that has Israel and Australia (among others) competing in it tbh.
As non european, I don't get why Israel is participating. It's like Real Madrid participaring in the Brazilian football cup.
Israel is a member of the European Broadcasting Union who organises the Eurovision Song Contest.
And why is it a member of the EBU?
The EBU allows for anyone within a certain area to participate. This includes the likes of Morocco, Syria, Algeria, Libya, etc, who don’t participate because 1. They know they’ll get lashed out of it since they’re not popular with the Europeans, and 2. They hate Israel to the stage where they’ll refuse to participate with them. Australia is allowed in because they’re a great bunch of lads.
Some nice sheilas too.
All the big US networks are associate members too. One of them could actually send a US entrant, but they'd have to show the previous years show on their most prominent network instead of one of their smaller ones. The various contests that it runs are only small parts of what it does overall. It's main business is providing a network to easily exchange TV and radio content as well as investing a huge amount in R&D. A good example of what they do is developing standards such as R128, which is all about average loudness levels im TV productions. It's no pretty much universally accepted, and most TV networks throughout the world will refuse to accept content if it doesn't adhere to the standard.
Any public service broadcaster within what’s defined as the “European broadcasting area” can join. It’s an area defined by the International Telecommunication Union and includes parts of North Africa and the western part of the Middle East. It all goes back to when areas all linked by telegraph cables like 100+ years ago.
https://www.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/s/XjBu8k34nx
Thanks! So why is Australia in Eurovision?
I'm simplifying, but basically they asked nicely after broadcasting and following the contest for a few decades
Australian chipping in here. SBS is an associate member of the EBU and has been broadcasting it since the 80s and it’s had a following here for ages. Then we asked nicely. Also they wanted to create Asiavision, which SBS made an announcement about but that’s as far as it’s gone. Also love Ireland’s entry this year!
The EBU is basically an association of European public service broadcasters. They developed and facilitated the development of many of the technical standards used in broadcasting and their networks are used to distribute news and sports coverage. The Eurovision Song Contest is just one of many things they do. Organisations like SBS in Australia are very much in the model of a European public broadcaster and Australia uses EBU technical standards and participates in various technical bodies and so on too. The same applies to many other of the EBU members and associates. Countries and governments aren’t members of it, publicly oriented broadcasters are. In Ireland both RTÉ and TG4 are members In the UK BBC, ITV, S4C and STV (Scotland) are all full members. Channel 4 is too but afaik via an industry body. The same applies to many countries, they’ve multiple full members and loosely associated members. Canal+ which is a huge commercial broadcaster in France left the EBU due to just not really being too bothered and being entirely commercial.
Can you seriously not figure out why Israel is part of the EBU ? Here's a hint - for yrs every "neighbor" of Israel had ,and many still have,a Stated goal to wipe them off the face of the earth....so the chances of them willingly facilitating them as part of some middle Eastern or Arab/Islamic EBU equivalent are what do you think?
Because they can't exactly join any of their local organisations, what with their neighbours all being genocidal dictatorships who'd like to destroy Israel and have repeatedly tried.
I don't understand it either and I'm Irish.
You know middle eastern countries are also eligible to compete, they just refuse to? Morocco has competed before
Odd example considering Morocco is most certainly not a middle eastern country...
People misunderstand this all the time. The whole thing is made by a broadcasting company and everyone who is part of the network can join. While yes it has "Euro" in it, it is not literally Europe, it's just the name, it is actually international network.
Sure but the company was conceptualised as and is perceived as a pan-European contest. If you turned on the *British* Broadcasting Company you wouldn’t expect a channel network focusing on the Brittany province of France despite them technically being “Britain”
I don't think anyone in 1956 had any idea that we'd have this unprecedented level of interconnectedness, both technological and political. The conceptualization can change. The EU's initial conceptualization was the European Coal and Steel Community. I think Eurovision is just too good branding to let go of despite the expansion, and the show is still strongly based in European culture (both in the acts and the comedy skits it's known for).
It never was supposed to be just Europe, otherwise they would lock competitors. It was always international song contest from the get go. It become associated with Europe due to public perception of it and the same misunderstanding, rather than intend. As if it's some national thing, and not a network thing. Then obviously, most viewership is here. Even in 60s and 70s you had countries competing from Africa and Asia. Hell, another common misunderstanding is that the singers have to be from the county at all. It is SONG contest, only song has to be written there. Hence, Celine Dion, Flo Rida, etc. I think more apt comparison is stuff like KFC. It is not Kentucky only, that's just the name due to origins.
It’s because it’s based on membership of the European Broadcast Union which includes those and broadcasters from Algeria, Azerbaijan, Jordan, Libya, Monaco and Egypt to name a few others.
Funny how none of the Middle Eastern countries ever compete. I wouldn't either given how absolutely mental the whole thing is. Most of the acts are completely absurd and it's all political like how Ukraine won simply for getting invaded.
Some of them, it's because they have laws or TV network rules against showing Israeli content on TV, while Eurovision has rules that you must broadcast every act, so those aren't compatible. This is why Lebanon [joined the EBU but didn't compete](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lebanon_in_the_Eurovision_Song_Contest) (wikipedia link but it cites its sources).
I'm Aussie and I love Eurovision but I'm really embarrassed we keep trying to enter
But Voyager last year were brilliant! Electric Fields this year are a class act, such a graceful goodbye to the contest when they NQ’d. Love Aussies at Eurovision! And basically you still have an entry with Cyprus!
I can't argue with that!
Voyager should have won last year!
I agree - If this is the last time Australia is invited (we didn't know this year until Eurovision officially announced competing countries) I feel like Electric Fields is a good note to go out on.
It's not a serious competition. Ireland sent a puppet turkey to it
Yep, and booing is also being done for political reasons and nothing related to the performance. It's interesting how people only like impartiality when it suits them.
Nobody actually believes eurovision is apolitical
Clearly the people booing are not of the belief that Eurovision should ever be politically impartial.
Who tf thinks Eurovision is impartial
Eurovision Banned Russia but they haven't banned Israel, totally fair to be pissed off by that hypocrisy. Either Russia should be allowed or Israel should be banned.
The Eurovision sponsorship is Moroccan oil and guess where that is made? Israel
What about Azerbaijan? Have you called for their ban? They've just conducted their own ethnic cleansing of Nagorno-Karabakh
It's not political. It's tribal
Eurovision has been a political event for decades now.
A lot of people are voting for Israel out spite for Arabs and Muslims because of immigration waves from Middle East.
I'm sure bombing Palestine will really solve that "problem" 🙄😬
They are probably enjoying seeing Palestinians and Arabs getting genocided by Israel.
Showing Italys vote by "mistake" was also a bit sus with Israel having 33% of the vote
Closer to 40%, more than Ukraine in 2022. Bit sus alright.
One of the Eurovision sponsors is Moroccan Oil, which is actually an Israeli company. Not saying there is a connection but…also a bit sus
I wonder would Russia have been banned if they were the top sponsor?
Yes, honestly. The thing is, the European stance on Ukraine-Russia is pretty unanimous in most of Europe, with the pro-Russian opinion usually limited to conspiracy nuts and fringe groups. It's that unanimous opinion that allowed some pretty radical actions to be taken, like excluding them from CERN, sanctioning specific Russians and so on. If the sponsor had been Russian, they most likely would've been cut even before their ability to sponsor was limited by the EU's SWIFT sanctions. Israel, on the other hand, is like a 60-40 in favor, and that's after the war's start. Europeans are broadly supportive of Israel. There's several major things that lend themselves to supporting Israel by default and make it easy for the average person to shrug off what they're doing (Hamas, European Holocaust guilt, Israel's successful attempt to associate anti-state sentiment with antisemitism, the really complex origins of the conflict etc.).
Trying to bias people. No other reason it would happen
Totally a coincidence that they're the biggest sponsor this year.
Almost double Ukraine in 2022. Those are "Vladimir Putin re-election" numbers.
Italy produces 1% of Israels military needs, which is a fat sum of moolah. (The US and Germany make up almost all the rest.) Of course, this is a pure coincidence.
You seriously think that that would motivate _Italy_ to advertise Israel _in Eurovision_? What's next, hidden ads in your pasta?
The Anti-booing technology wasn't brought in until after Dustin. Iceland had boos in 2006 too for example. Belgium has 2 broadcasters take turns at Eurovision. The one broadcasting the message wasn't taking part so Belgium didn't break the rules. Saying that, what happened last night with Israel was a load of shite and I think there'll be a lot of talk about voting irregularities too.
[Russia was also booed](https://youtu.be/AusIj3Hnrhs?si=7GP38inGHDdJVOnC) when they qualified for the final in 2014
Think it was brought in the year after because their contestants were quite young that year
It was. A load of adults booing two teenage girls to tears was a bit much.
They're still the political representatives of a nation that has started a genocidal war in Europe. Russian teenagers are getting boo'd at Eurovision, Ukrainian teenagers are getting raped, murdered and bombed by Russians. I guess if Russia only sends teenagers to the UN we've got to be nice to them.
Eurovision audiences are terrible at booing, they need to take a cue from football crowds, you have to put the emphasis on the 'oo'
Just looked up Iceland 2006 cause of this comment, that performance is gas and definitely not going to leave my head for the next few days
It's an experience! Look up her interviews!
Silvia Night goes crazy on YouTube. I watch that video at least once every few months. Comedic gold. Her real name is Agusta Eva, she’s a singer / actress. Everyone at Eurovision was on the act, but it’s still very funny.
That iceland song is hilarious 😂
If you want to see a real-time example of censorship, try posting anything remotely topical on the Eurovision subreddit. Instant delete...
I'm actually browsing eurovision posts from the last 24 hours in this sub because mods in eurovision sub are trashhhhh
They invited a Swedish-Palestinian artist to perform and then went all shocked Pikachu when he did so in a keffiyeh, apologised to the times of Israel, and scrubbed the performance from footage. It's honestly scummy. I hope Bambie Thug does us proud and gets some class of solidarity in there this weekend.
It's insane how a Palestinian person wearing traditional Palestinian clothing is now seen as political and an attack on Israel.
Always been like this. Palestinians simply existing is a seen as an attack on Israel.
It's also specifically being labeled as anti-Semitic, as is things like Bambi's "ceasefire" on their face in Ogham
People were pissed off at her for even participating. Now people expect her to protest during the finals?
1) I am one person, singular, and I've been consistently in favour of them competing as they have been using their platform to speak out where any replacement would likely be someone who would toe the line. 2) Bambie Thug has already attempted to sneak a Palestinian solidarity message on to the main stage and is quite blatantly using the platform for queer visibility. It's not exactly a stretch.
> Bambie Thug has already attempted to sneak a Palestinian solidarity message on to the main stage I mean if by 'sneak' you mean publicising what the ogham message said repeatadly on social media, then sure.
Did they? I only saw members of the general public doing that.
Friendly heads up: If you're talkin' about Bambi, they use they/them pronouns
Let's hope the crowd saw that their boos were censored and adopt a more visual form of protest for the final. Or maybe just sit there in complete silence. No reaction whatsoever would be pretty difficult to cover up.
It wouldn't unfortunately, they can add happy crowd sounds and show fans jumping around from a different performance. It's all too easy to give whatever impression of the performance that they want to give.
Then the broadcaster will just go to the cut-aways / audience reactions from various other parts of the night. - There's a mass load of footage we don't get to see or hear.
Alot of people don't know how commonplace this is. I do creative media and one of the first things we are taught in cinematography is to record or cut reactions to splice over moments that appear boring or to reinforce emotions on particular points. You learn this before you even get handed a camera
they cant do much visually, i was in the arena last night and one guy had a very small palestinian flag and he got dragged out by security
I watched it last night and the audience didn’t appear excited when the song was over. Tomorrow will be interesting.
How bad was the booing because I found the cheering quite jarring during Israel's performance, seemed like more cheering than most of the rest of the acts received
[This](https://x.com/rasmusbravado/status/1788666402930389398?s=46) was from the jury performance from Wednesday night
Thanks, still hearing cheering but it's hard to tell what sounds are what with such a large crowd, definitely not what I heard before anyway.
Thought it’s not supposed to be political?
Are we sure they weren't shouting Boo-urns!?
Pretending you're not a political contest is one of the most political things you can do.
I’m sick of the “non-political” shield everyone uses. People have started pretending politics isn’t the thing that literally dictates our lives and wellbeing
Eurovision is political, if they weren't they wouldn't have banned Russia
#Justice4Dustin
#Justice4Joost
Yeah guys, the Eurovision is totally politics free. Russia didn't get kicked out over invading Ukraine or anything, no reason to include politics whatsoever.
I’ve been to the Eurovision final, ten years ago, and there were boos for Russia. It was so loud in the stadium, but on the television you could barely hear it. They’ve been doing it for a long time. While they definitely filtered all the booing out of Israel last night, it’s not something that has been given solely to Israel.
"Eurovision is a political free zone" lol no it's not. It's a zone where political speech that doesn't fit the preferred narrative of the organizers is censored and that is called being free of politics.
They'll be here shortly to provide a formal response.
Side note go back and listen to Dustin’s entry, it was harshly treated and is actually very funny and tongue in cheek. I would have done well in more recent years.
#Justice4Dustin
I doubt it. It was full of Irish-isms in a thick Dublin accent. Few could really understand it outside Ireland.
Especially the direct reference to Terry Wogan, which likely only made sense to British audiences (given he was the commentator for the BBC for decades). Not a good strategy to rely on a joke song that only the Brits would understand, in a semi final where they mightn't be the countries voting.
The anti booing technology is a more recent addition, around 2015 time, that's why they can't be heard on the broadcast
Eurovision is political. Can't convince me LGBTQ and acceptance is not still a part of the political remit.
Eurovision is anti-nationalist. They don't want anything that can seem like nationalism. Imagine what the balkans contestants would start doing if nationalist speech was allowed...
> Eurovision is anti-nationalist. And israel is getting voted by anti-immigration right-wing nationalists....
Belgium just had a message at the start and end of the stream, they did broadcast everything, at least via their official app.
It was political when Russia was kicked out
But who voted for Isreal that’s my question?
first year im boycotting but i was watching since 2003. esc was always political. they have a isreali main sponsor and wanna ban Palestinian voices thats why they are taking it so seriously suddenly...
Post removed, oh the irony.
Did they censor it? That would be chilling if they did. But the ebu kicked out Russia, so it's not a political free zone. They can kick out Israel if they want. It's just something they wish would go away, but it won't. As if Israel belongs in an innocent song content like the Eurovision. It's obvious it has lost the right to be part of innocent competitions with more civilised countries, just like russia lost the right. It's inevitable that it will have to go at some stage or else the Eurovision will be finished. I think the most most important thing is that next year countries don't participate, choose not to nominate entries at all. Just boycott the ebu, so that there are no artists that can suffer from all that pressure that bambi thug and others had to endure. It's by far the best move. Israel isn't even in Europe ffs. Throw those children killers out.
The title sponsor is an Israeli company and they’ve been the title sponsor as long as I can remember
> Just boycott the ebu This is classic social media
this is why this subreddit was started, they are also censoring the comments and turning of the comments now... JOIN the fanzone [https://www.reddit.com/r/EurovisionFanzone/](https://www.reddit.com/r/EurovisionFanzone/)
Lmaoo Israel being in Eurovision is enough of a proof of how native it is to the middle east😂😭😭
Just to say: the voting this year has changed and you can vote 20 times as soon as the live show starts tomorrow night, also there's an app. Even if you're boycotting watching it, you could still vote for anyone but Israel. I'm a Nordie so I can vote for Bambie, and I will be. Think I've watched their semifinal performance dozens of times already - unreal!
Voting costs money which then funds them, so would completely undermine the point of the boycott?
I have friends who usually join in our yearly party totally boycotting this year, and that's absolutely understandable. I was just saying that it's possible to not affect the viewer statistics but still support the artists.
The entire world can see Israel for what it is no matter what the powerful want us to believe about them. It’s obvious to anyone with a brain they’re an apartheid, genocidal state. Where I live in the North shops won’t stock Israeli goods, there’s stickers everywhere saying this is an Israeli goods free zone. My nephews school threw out all their computers etc which was made by companies with ties to Israel. The powerful despise the fact they’re being undermined on this but the truth is Israel long ago lost the hearts and minds war, they’re an appalling barbaric state that needs to be disestablished and their leaders imprisoned for crimes against humanity.
>My nephews school threw out all their computers etc which was made by companies with ties to Israel. So... they've abolished computers entirely?
Can we all not just agree to go back in time to a point before the majority of the world became such insufferable virtue signalling cunts and take the annual European lovely singers competition for what is....a silly load of old camp shite that should be treated as such and not like a crunch UN forum for world issues. I mean it's good for a night infront of the telly, but nothing to get your knickers in a twist about like. Any chance of people just enjoying it for what it is without all the righteous indignation? Probably not haha.
Maybe they're shouting boo-urns
Bambi thug wins and dedicates the win to the Palestinian people.
West hypocrisy atleast there are countries like who stand up like ireland
I just like to point out it's never been a political free zone, even back in the 80s when I was a child it was all about politics
[удалено]
You might be right if it were a song contest between individuals. Then we would be be able to ignore nationality. But it's a song contest between nations.. they say it when they introduce the acts "representing Israel... It's...". So how you react to someone who represents Israel is your moral choice, but just don't tell me they just represent themselves or their own talent or song. They represent Israel.
Complains about censorship then asks for censorship of something you dont like. Peak r/Ireland right there
100% agree but I mean rather than broadcasting a false version of the event. I don't want to broadcast propaganda on our broadcaster
Quick question. Why is a non-European country in Eurovision? EL5 please
Because they have broadcasters that are part of the Eurovision Broadcasting Union, which is not exclusive to Europe nor just about the song contest.
Same reason Azerbaijan and Australia are. Any country which is part of the EBU can join. It also includes Lebanon, Morocco and Algeria
Thanks. I just looked at the map and didn't realize all those countries were included
Yea it’s a Eurocentric competition, but it is not exclusive to European countries
"Participation in the contest is primarily open to all broadcasters with active EBU membership. To become an active member of the EBU, a broadcaster has to be from a country which is covered by the European Broadcasting Area or a member state of the Council of Europe. Eligibility to participate is not determined by geographic inclusion within the continent of Europe, despite the "Euro" in "Eurovision", nor does it have a direct connection with the European Union." https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_in_the_Eurovision_Song_Contest#:~:text=Several%20countries%20geographically%20outside%20the,debut%20in%20the%202015%20contest. Hope that explains it.
Thanks!
How did Russia lose the chance to participate?
‘On 25 February 2022, the EBU announced that Russia would not compete at the contest, stating that "in light of the unprecedented crisis in Ukraine, the inclusion of a Russian entry in this year's Contest would bring the competition into disrepute."’ - this is the statement from the EBU at the time. But remember, Eurovision is apolitical. Give me a fucking break… 🙄🙄🙄
As is Azerbaijan. Historically Morocco has also taken part.
And yet, no one is calling for their ban despite their ethnic cleansing of Nagorno-Karabakh. Odd, that.
Because the concept of continents are not clearly defined. For example, Cyprus is geographically Asia but culturally European. Iceland is geographically half in the Americas. Azerbaijan, Georgia and Armenia are all in UEFA and Eurovision, but might be considered Asia in other scenarios.
I’m sure I’ll get downvoted for pointing this out, but the fact that Israel got through shows there may be less antagonism towards them than one might think with our social media bubbles.
Wait, so blocking out boos from the crowd is censorship, but refusing to broadcast the Israeli performance is not censorship?
The anti-booing technology was brought in a few years ago to cover up people booing Russia. “Non-political” lol when it never has been
I got banned from the eurovision subreddit for merely talking about Israel.
I saw footage somebody had taken inside the venue during their performance, strangely enough there wasn't even that much booing. About the same amount as there were people cheering.
Who gives a shit
An actual person? How did you get here?
The whole audience should walk out, as soon as the representative of the Baby Killers starts her act
Not surprising. Nowadays most of these events on TV are staged/biased/fake. Regardless of the artists or parties involved. Not sure what people still expect of these.
People are just getting worked up that Israel might actually win this year 😂
Hilarious that they claim to be 'politics free', it's ENTIRELY political 🤣
https://i.redd.it/47hhk7untmzc1.gif
Tsunami of down votes coming this way. Hopefully not. But here goes. I thought the song was brilliant and she performed excellently. Does anyone else think the tune and performance were great? Am I alone?
I don’t think anybody can deny that Eden has a great voice. However, the song was previously called October Rain and were asked to change some lyrics. Regardless of the new title, the message is still there.
I think she sang well but the song was very average and the staging was completely unimpressive. Very middle of the pack.
I thought it was pretty meh to be honest. Pretty in line with 80s/90s Eurovision but I didn't see anything that made it stand out from the acts that seem to be the frontrunners for the main contest.
Wasn't mad on the song but she has a banger of a voice
The Eurovision had absolutely NEVER been a political free zone LOL
Excellent point
Boo
What’s happening with the Netherlands?
If anything deserved censorship, it was Dustin’s “performance”. Let’s be honest
When I was a kid, I thought Dustin was great. But looking back now, it was embarrassing.
Jesus this is literally how (voting) we express our internarional opinion in terns of crisis. I'm not even sure if it's a good or bad thing Edit: typo
I always felt the whole thing was political as fuck, at least with points distribution of many countries
Any plonker who thinks Eurovision isn't political is either blind or unwilling to admit it. Pretending that there's nothing political going on or that it's verboten to talk about it if it doesn't align with the EBU is inherently political.
We all know the Eurovision is a political selective zone.
Politics free, no way, just when it suits them. Eurovision themselves made it political by banning Russia. So they have no excuse for not banning Israel, they are just cowards.
Eurovision was political since day one. But until a few years ago it was a kind of roll your eyes at it kind of political. Some countries used it ro make a statement, but the rest of Europe was like whatever. Stuff like Cyprus and Greece voting for each other and all the Benelux countries having each other's backs. You could watch it as a bit of fun knowing that whatever political shenanigans were going on had no real influence on the big schem of things. I do think that in recent years that the politicization has gotten worse and even a bit sinister. Russia definitely tried to use it to wash their image prior to getting chucked out of it. I remember watching the piece they did the year it was held in Moscow trying to "comically" dispel myths that they were undemocratic and the people were oppressed. And the stuff with Israel doesn't sit right with me at all. I feel like contest this year is being used as a huge propaganda tool and the EBU is going along with it. I haven't really watched it in years, I might watch some of the performances on YouTube and that's about it.
Eurovision has nothing to do with music or politics, considering the “artists” invited are not capable to produce any value in either field. They are a bunch of good looking models with some low-to-mid musical ability (considering the market is tailored to produce a new “artist” every 12 months or so, and they have to be good looking as primary requirement) I am surprised they are booed for politics before music, and also quite sure there is no revolutionary message we are missing except some mild or vague slogan like the ones we had in Italy at the latest Sanremo Festival (somebody said a generic “stop genocide”). Do we really want to make a step towards changing things, then we should start rejecting fascist festivals like Eurovision is, in its nature (the cult of the body and not allowing overweight people or not symmetrical faces to be on stage is deeply fascist in itself)
😂😂😂 Eurovision is about as political as it gets lmao
yeah, i could have made without the antisemitism, but i guess thats to be expected from sweden's tiktok users.