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7amleh Warns Against the Proposed "Computer Data Intrusion" Law

7amleh 

7amleh warns about the repercussions of approving the proposed "Computer Data Intrusion" law, which was discussed by the ministerial committee for legislation in the Israeli government yesterday, November 28th. This law, recently presented to the Knesset by its member, Tzvika Foghel, a colleague of Minister Ben Gvir, grants the Israeli police unprecedented powers to secretly spy on and remotely search the electronic devices of citizens. The law would allow the police to use cameras and microphones in personal electronic devices, such as mobile phones and computers, and to access stored materials by installing spywares such as "Pegasus" after obtaining a court order, all without the knowledge of the device owner, under the pretext of combating crime.

7amleh Issues New Report on the Impact of War on Gaza’s Telecommunications Infrastructure 

7amleh

The Arab Center for the Advancement of Social Media, has released its new report, "Gaza Telecommunications Infrastructure: Assessment to Damages and Humanitarian Impact," which highlights the extensive damage and humanitarian impact caused by the ongoing war and genocide in Gaza since 7 October last year. The telecommunications sector has experienced widespread destruction, significantly affecting the lives of citizens in Gaza and disrupting essential services. According to initial assessments by Palestine Telecommunications Company (Paltel) group and Ooredoo, published by the Ministry of Telecommunications and Digital Economy of the State of Palestine, 75% of Gaza's telecommunications infrastructure has been damaged, with at least 50% completely destroyed. This has resulted in repeated disruptions to communication and internet services, with the first complete outage occurring on 29 October last year. Communications services have been cut off at least 15 times during a year of devastation, according to a previous report by 7amleh.

Netflix Wiped Most of Its “Palestinian Stories” Collection — and Erased the Whole Thing in Israel

The Intercept 

“Netflix will launch the Palestinian Stories collection, showcasing films from some of the Arab world’s finest filmmakers,” said an announcement of the new grouping. “[T]he collection is a tribute to the creativity and passion of the Arab film industry as Netflix continues to invest in stories from the Arab world.” Thirty-two films were slated for inclusion, with more additions planned. Now, however, following a purge of at least 24 films from Netflix’s library, the landing page for the collection contains just a single film for streamers in the United States: Lina Al Abed’s 2019 documentary “Ibrahim: A Fate to Define” — and that’s just if you access it from the U.S.

 ‘Double Standards and Hypocrisy’: The Dissent at Cisco Over the War in Gaza

Wired 

Over the past year, Cisco publicly looked like one of the few tech companies that had avoided internal backlash over its response to the war in Gaza. Chuck Robbins, the CEO of the Silicon Valley giant known for its routers, cybersecurity services, and WebEx video calling, issued a statement last November acknowledging the suffering of both Israelis and Palestinians. And as recently as two months ago, Francine Katsoudas, Cisco’s chief people, policy, and purpose officer, smiled as she posed for photos with many of the company’s employee organizations, including the one for Palestinians. However, this photo later became a source of significant contention within the company.

Microsoft Fired Our Members for Organizing a Vigil for Palestinian Victims of Microsoft-Powered Genocide

Medium 

Microsoft unjustly terminated two Microsoft workers and members of the No Azure for Apartheid campaign — Abdo Mohamed and Hossam Nasr — for holding a lunchtime vigil and fundraiser at the Microsoft headquarters in Redmond, WA. At the vigil, we honored the hundreds of thousands of Palestinian victims of Israel’s genocide in Gaza, enabled by Microsoft’s Azure cloud technology. We honored our martyrs Over 200 employees joined the vigil both in person and virtually, where we honored the lives of Shaban al-Dalou, a software engineering student in Gaza who was burned alive by Israeli bombs two weeks ago; Mai Ubeid, a former Google intern who was killed in an Israeli airstrike in Gaza;

Social Media’s Key Role in Palestinian Activism for Gaza

Modern Diplomacy 

The world continues to bear witness to the ongoing genocide in Gaza. It is indeed a new moment in history when the world can rely on individual, independent documentation of atrocities so large in magnitude. Through social media, people around the world can clearly see what the crimes are, hear real-time updates, and interact with Gazans via social media platforms. Social media has also proven to be an effective tool in monumental legal precedents. In South Africa’s eighty-four page filing before the International Court of Justice, it leaned on content from social media platforms as evidence that Palestinians in the West Bank were arrested for posting about Gaza, and posts by Israeli soldiers as evidence as evidence of war crimes. South Africa cited posts from X and Instagram among their sources, all of which contributed to the court’s historic advisory opinion in July of 2024.

Netflix Responds to Activists Criticizing Palestinian Films Removal: “Those Licenses Have Now Expired”

Hollywood Reporter

 Netflix has responded to backlash over it removing 19 films by or about Palestinians from the streaming platform in mid-October. In a statement, the streamer said the Palestinian Stories collection with 32 films was launched in Oct. 2021 as part of a three-year licensing deal. “Those licenses have now expired. As always we continue to invest in a wide variety of quality films and TV shows to meet our members’ needs, and celebrate voices from around the world,” Netflix said on Friday. The decision to not renew the Palestinian stories slate as part of a content licensing deal led a coalition of human rights groups led by Freedom Forward to write an open letter to Netflix’s executive team to explain why it removed 19 films by or about Palestinians.

 Researching content moderation through platform transparency rules: the DSA as a research tool to address pro-Palestinian content censorship

DSA Observatory 

With the current crisis in the Middle East of Israel’s military operation in Gaza following the October 7, 2023 attack by Hamas, concerns about the censorship of Palestinian activism have increased. Much of this attention has focused on social media platforms’ content moderation policies, which are crucial for public communication about this conflict. Platforms moderate this speech on legal and policy grounds, but face growing criticism that their actions are inaccurate, biased, and unaccountable, especially so for pro-Palestinian content. Non-governmental organisation (NGO) Human Rights Watch (HRW) has identified the over-moderation of pro-Palestinian content online, deemed “systemic censorship.” HRW conducted this research between October and November 2023 by publishing a call for evidence of online censorship in English, Arabic, and Hebrew on platforms Instagram, X (formerly Twitter), and TikTok. They received 1.285 cases and reviewed 1,050. 

Joint Letter To Meta Regarding Insufficient Human Rights Due Diligence

Madar

We, the undersigned civil society organizations, are writing to you to express our disappointment in Meta’s insufficient action to address key problems related to its content moderation actions as outlined in the Business for Social Responsibility’s (BSR) 2022 report Human Rights Due Diligence of Meta’s Impacts in Israel and Palestine in May 2021, including on the disproportionate over-moderation of Palestine-related content. Meta’s most recent annual update and the lackluster response to some of BSR’s key recommendations reflect the company’s ongoing failure to uphold its essential human rights obligations. The publication of the BSR report back in September 2022 following a recommendation from the Oversight Board, alongside Meta’s public response to the report, was a much-welcomed and reassuring step that signaled the company’s seriousness towards assuming accountability for its human rights responsibilities. However, both the September 2023 and 2024 annual reports raise concerns over whether Meta is serious about implementing the report’s 21 recommendations.