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Digital Rights Weekly Update: 6 - 12 December

2024-12-12

Weekly Update on Palestinian Digital Rights

7amleh’s New Report Reveals Intensified Surveillance and Digital Rights Violations in East Jerusalem

7amleh

The Arab Center for the Advancement of Social Media has released a new report titled "Intensification of Surveillance in East Jerusalem Since October 2023." The report sheds light on the escalation of Israeli digital surveillance policies and their impact on the civil and political rights of Palestinian residents of East Jerusalem since 7 October 2023. It presents detailed findings based on 15 interviews with Jerusalemite Palestinians, in addition to a survey conducted between September and October of this year, involving 502 respondents from East Jerusalem. The report indicates that Israeli surveillance and digital control policies have reached unprecedented levels over the past year.


 

 

The world owes Palestine this much - please stop censoring Palestinian voices

Middle East Monitor 

Social media censorship is a global phenomenon, but the war on pro-Palestinian views on social media represents a different kind of censorship, with consequences that can only be described as dire. Long before the current devastating war on Gaza and the escalation of Israeli violence and repression in the Occupied West Bank, Palestinian and pro-Palestinian voices have been censored. Some date the censorship to an agreement in 2016 that, according to the Israeli government, sought to “force social networks to remove content that Israel considers to be incitement.” This was translated, almost immediately, to the shutting down of thousands of accounts and the barring of many social media influencers, with the hope of slowing down the vastly growing pro-Palestinian tendencies in all Meta-linked platforms.

 


 

 

Representing Gaza: Artists are using social media-based comics as resources and resistance

Scroll.in 

Digital comics are circulated among platform users and provide an accessible outlet for processing emotion, showing solidarity and disseminating knowledge. Comics and graphic narratives have long been used to document the events of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, both by people visiting and reporting on the region, as well as by Palestinians and Israelis. This is reminiscent of what social media scholars studying mental health communities, such as Natalie Ann Hendry, refer to as “being together alone,” where people working through experiences find community, solidarity and support in popular online spaces.

 


 

 

Streaming site Twitch is embroiled in controversy over creators’ content about its handling of Israel and Palestine

CNN

Creators on Twitch have waded into controversy over Israel’s war in Gaza in recent months, spooking advertisers and brands who have pulled away or otherwise admonished the Amazon-owned livestreaming platform. JPMorgan Chase pulled out of Twitch advertising in the last couple of months, a source said, though it was part of a broader strategy of brand safety and worries about what content was showing up near their ads. Antisemitism allegations went into those considerations. Chevron, a sponsor of Twitch’s semi-annual convention, TwitchCon, expressed disappointment with Twitch in a statement to CNN after controversial comments were made during a TwitchCon panel of Middle Eastern streamers.

 

 

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