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1.

7amleh Calls on Meta to Fully Implement BSR Report Recommendations (English)

7amleh

7amleh -The Arab Center for the Advancement of Social Media welcomed Meta's recently released update on its progress in implementing the Business for Social Responsibility (BSR) recommendations from the Human Rights Due Diligence of Meta’s Impacts in Israel and Palestine in May 2021 report. Nevertheless, and a full year after they were published, 7amleh urges immediate full implementation of all BSR report recommendations. 7amleh acknowledges positive steps indicated in Meta’s recent report, including a long-sought overhaul to the controversial “Dangerous Organizations and Individuals” policy. 7amleh considers this a step in the right direction as the DOI policy tended to disproportionately censor news reporting and political discourse in Palestine. Additionally, 7amleh welcomes the introduction of a Hebrew classifier, and finds it essential that Meta provides data analytics on the classifier’s ability to accurately detect hate speech. 7amleh also considers the addition of a dialect-specific Arabic classifier as a welcome improvement. The aforementioned updates will help in addressing issues related to both over-enforcement and under-enforcement of content moderation decisions.

2

7amleh Warns against Proposed Bill Allowing Facial Recognition Surveillance in Public Spaces (English)

7amleh

7amleh - The Arab Center for the Advancement of Social Media, raises the alarm over the imminent approval of a bill that grants the Israeli police the power to deploy facial recognition cameras in public spaces. 7amleh is concerned about the consequences, and views this as a grave encroachment on digital rights, the right to privacy, and the right to peaceful assembly. This development is reminiscent of the multifaceted surveillance regime that operates around the clock, nicknamed "Big Brother." This biometric surveillance regime eradicates all semblance of privacy for citizens, and more intensely so for Palestinian citizens of Israel. The proposed bill explicitly focuses on Palestinian towns and cities within Israel, as articulated by its main sponsors, National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir and Justice Minister Yariv Levin.

3.

Is online retailer Amazon cracking down on the sale of pro-Palestine merchandise? (English)

Mronline.org

 Amazon’s increasing crackdown on Palestinian resistance by either removing products or limiting their visibility is not limited to merchandise, but also extends to books, once Amazon’s core commodity.When I typed in “boycott Israel book” into the search box on Amazon’s website, the pro-Zionist search engine algorithms yielded results that attack the Boycott “Israel” movement first: reactionary and pseudo-academic titles such as “The Case Against Academic Boycotts of Israel”

4.

My appeal to Meta’s Oversight Board: Palestinian political and resistance organizations & individuals are not “terrorists” as classified by Israel

Countercurrents

As many are aware, anti-Zionist attacks on Israel and pro-Palestinian speech is restricted and penalized on many social-media platforms. Recently, using the standard of “dangerous individuals and organizations” as cover, Facebook removed one of my posts in which I shared and quoted from Khaled Barakat’s seminal article about Israel’s colonization of Palestine and the Palestinian struggle for liberation and self-determination.