check out our digital rights weekly update

1.

The Twitter Files, Palestine and a Question of Bias (English)

Jordan News

Two journalists, Matt Tabbi and Bari Weiss, were given unprecedented access to Twitter’s internal systems. Both journalists were reportedly given company laptops, access to Twitter’s internal slack, and even access to Twitter’s backend systems. The fact that Musk selected Weiss as one of the journalists to break a story about censorship is exceptionally ironic, given Weiss’ history. Before becoming an editor and opinion writer at publications such as the Wall Street Journal, Tablet and The New York Times, Weiss was a pro-Israel student organizer at Columbia University who worked tirelessly to suppress academic freedom for Palestinian and Arab scholars. When she was appointed as an opinion writer at The New York Times, journalist Glenn Greenwald wrote that “her relatively short career as a writer and activist has been overwhelmingly devoted to one issue: a defense of the Israeli government and a corresponding smear campaign against its critics.

2.

Spyware and Surveillance-for-hire industry ‘Growing Globally’: Report (English)

The Record

The spyware and surveillance-for-hire industry is “indiscriminately” targeting journalists, activists and political opposition, and growing on a global scale, the social media company Meta warned. In a new report published Thursday, the company said it has “continued to investigate and take actions against spyware vendors around the world, including in China, Russia, Israel, the United States and India, who targeted people in about 200 countries and territories.” Meta was one of the first to publicly challenge the spyware industry back in 2019, when it began legal proceedings against Israeli firm NSO Group for hacking into approximately 1,400 WhatsApp users’ mobile devices.

3.

Facebook Suspends Page of Palestinian Newspaper Al-Quds (English)

The Siasat Daily

Facebook a few hours ago reportedly suspended the page of the Palestinian newspaper Al-Quds. The page which has around 10 million followers was suspended without any explanation. Al-Quds which is the oldest Palestinian daily publication was founded in 1967. It is not the first time. Earlier too Facebook suspended the page of the Al-Qastal news site without any explanation.