Losing Power You may have noticed that this newsletter didn’t appear in your inbox last…
Israel and its supporters use the charge of antisemitism to deter anyone who dares to hold Israel accountable — from commenters on social media all the way to the International Criminal Court.
Human rights activists launched a campaign this week to stop social media giant Facebook from adjusting its hate speech policy to classify the word ‘Zionist’ as a protected category, a move that would make any criticism of Zionism a violation of Facebook’s Community Standards and hate speech policy.
Despite the challenges of remote learning, campus activism for Palestine charged forward this past year.
For the last couple years, we’ve heard a lot about the perils of “Cancel Culture” and the free speech crisis that has plagued our universities, but it’s very clear that this alleged problem only applies to certain viewpoints. The people who push these narratives don’t care if Palestinians or advocates for Palestine are literally silenced.
Three tech giants censored an online class featuring Palestinian, Black, Jewish and South African activists at San Francisco State University, after pro-Israel advocacy groups complained. “This is a dangerous attack on free speech and academic freedom from Big Tech: Zoom cannot claim veto power over the content of our nation’s classrooms and public events,” said Dima Khalidi, director of Palestine Legal. “The threat to democracy is elevated by the fact that Zoom’s decision to stamp out discussion of Palestinian freedom comes in response to a systematic repression campaign driven by the Israeli government and its allies.”
Jewish Voice for Peace, Palestine Solidarity Campaign UK, The Palestine Institute for Public Diplomacy, 7amleh, and a number of other groups, are holding a digital day of action to draw attention to Facebook’s censorship of Palestinian voices.
A Facebook lawsuit has revealed the extent of an Israeli spyware company’s operation in the United States.
Following outrage over a message on his official Facebook page telling voters “Arabs want to annihilate us all,” Facebook has suspended the chatbot feature of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s page.
Members of the Liberal Democrat party in the UK publish an open letter to party leaders, opposing their definition of antisemitism to include criticism of Israel, which led to suspension of a party organization for social media posts. “Israel deserves same treatment as China, Russia or other violators of human rights,” the letter-writers say.