Check out our digital rights weekly update

Weekly Update October 28 - November 3 

1.

Title: Revealed: The Former Israeli Spies Working In Top Jobs at Google, Facebook and Microsoft (English)

Source: Mint Press News

Body: A MintPress study has found that hundreds of former agents of the notorious Israeli spying organization, Unit 8200, have attained positions of influence in many of the world’s biggest tech companies, including Google, Facebook, Microsoft and Amazon. The Israeli Defense Forces’ (IDF) Unit 8200 is infamous for surveilling the indigenous Palestinian population, amassing kompromat on individuals for the purposes of blackmail and extortion. Spying on the world’s rich and famous, Unit 8200 hit the headlines last year, after the Pegasus scandal broke. Former Unit 8200 officers designed and implemented software that spied on tens of thousands of politicians and likely aided in the killing of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

2.

Title: The digital war on Palestine: How online censorship shapes the narrative about Palestinians (English)

Source: Cultorico

Body: The ‘war of narratives’ is a key feature of Israel’s system of control over Palestinians, and the Palestinian narrative is often erased completely from traditional media coverage. Social media platforms have allowed Palestinians to bypass traditional forms of media and reach a global audience.  However, familiar tactics used in the offline world to silence Palestinians and censor criticism of Israel are now being deployed in the online world.

3.

Title: Dialogue with Mona Shtayyeh | Palestinians are subjected to double discrimination by social Platforms (ِArabic)

Source: Arab 48

Body: Social media networks continue to discriminate against Palestinian content, under the increasing influence of the Zionist lobbying groups and the major world powers on the companies that run these networks. In return, intensive Israeli content is being posted through these networks combating the Palestinian narrative and distort the image of the Palestinians. Israel works through Zionist groups, “cyber” units and experts specialized in the field, by pressuring social networks and pushing them to impose strict restrictions on Palestinian content, especially those related to exposing the Israeli crimes.

4.

Title: Freepalestine on TikTok: from performative activism to (meaningful) playful activism (English)

Source: Taylor & Francis Online

Body: Palestinians, like many other diasporic communities, have, on the one hand, articulated their personal experiences and their subjectivities through digitalized channels. On the other, they have used social networks as tools for resistance, to make their voices heard by global public opinion. Acknowledging that each social medium is a unique socio-technological environment, displaying particular affordances that shape its dynamics of communicative practices and social interactions, this paper focuses on TikTok, the most popular social network among Gen Zers, disclosing how the affordances of this platform shape and engender a new form of activism, that we will define “playful activism”.