Digital Rights Weekly Update: 23 - 29 October 2026

Policy Insight

This week’s Israeli elections brought digital manipulation and the delegitimisation of Palestinian political participation into sharp focus. Netanyahu shared an AI-generated image alongside claims about Arab voter turnout, framing Palestinian citizens’ participation as a threat to the future of the state. Such messaging can turn ordinary political participation into a supposed existential danger, while unsubstantiated claims of foreign interference further cast suspicion on Palestinian voters.

As explored in our recent Global Voices piece, “Palestine is already living under the Big Tech authoritarianism the world is being sold”, technologies used to surveil, classify, and control Palestinians under occupation offer a glimpse of how digital systems can reinforce authoritarian power far beyond Palestine. The election is another lens through which to examine these dynamics. 7amleh is closely monitoring the digital landscape through its tools and analysing the data collected, with an informative analysis of the election expected soon. The findings will help clarify how digital platforms and technologies shape political narratives, participation, and public perception.

News Digest

Beyond the Slur: How Online Misogyny in the Levant Targets Men, Erases Women, and Escapes Platform Policy

7amleh - The Arab Center for the Advancement of Social Media

28 October 2026, 7amleh - The Arab Center for the Advancement of Social Media released a new policy brief titled “Beyond the Slur: How Online Misogyny in the Levant Targets Men, Erases Women, and Escapes Platform Policy.” The brief is based on a large-scale analysis of technology-facilitated gender-based violence (TFGBV) in Levantine Arabic online spaces. It examines how language that degrades women is used to target both women and men, and the extent to which current platform policies are able to detect and address these patterns. The brief analyses 58,798 abusive posts in Levantine Arabic published on Facebook and X between 1 January and 22 April 2026. The findings show that 55.2% of posts use language that degrades women, while only 21.3% of the overall corpus is actually directed at a woman. The analysis also finds that 46.3% of all misogynistic content is aimed at men, with a woman who is not present - such as a mother, sister, or wife - invoked as the instrument of the attack. The findings expose a gap in platform classification and content moderation systems. Content that degrades women in order to wound a man does not fit neatly within harassment categories, which require an identifiable target being harassed, or hate speech categories, which require a protected group to be attacked as a group. As a result, these patterns may fall outside the frameworks currently used to classify and address violations.

Palestine is already living under the Big Tech authoritarianism the world is being sold

Global Voices

For Palestinians, the relationship between technology and authoritarianism is a lived reality, rather than predictions or science fiction. Israel’s settler-colonial regime has long fused military force with legal, economic and technological mechanisms to dominate Palestinian life.  Surveillance, data harvesting, facial recognition, telecommunications blackouts, digital censorship and algorithmic systems are now woven into this architecture of control. The genocidal war on Gaza has exposed the consequences with devastating clarity, where technologies built to collect, process and classify information have been absorbed into systems that surveil, target and kill Palestinians. But Palestine is also a warning about what comes next. Technologies developed, tested and refined under occupation do not stay there. They become products, expertise and business models that circulate globally. What emerges is a political economy in which military and intelligence institutions, technology companies, investors and governments converge around the extraction and processing of data as a means of exercising power.

Gaza’s fragile internet lifeline: Nattat’s battle to keep his neighbourhood connected

Middle East Monitor 

For Ali Nattat, the day begins with a look at the sky. In Gaza, the sunlight falling on his solar panels determines whether he can keep his neighbourhood connected to the outside world. Unlike many homes nearby, Nattat’s modest house survived the airstrikes. It now houses a small internet network that supports his family and provides work for five employees. For displaced families and people working remotely on his street, it also provides a vital means of communication. The network runs entirely on solar energy. Nattat has four small panels of his own and uses additional panels borrowed from a neighbour in exchange for free electricity. Together, they charge salvaged batteries that keep the equipment running after sunset. But the system is fragile. Cloudy weather limits how much electricity the panels generate, leaving less power available at night. “When my system abruptly dies at night, it doesn’t just cut my income; it paralyses the entire neighborhood,” Nattat said.

X Shuts Down Accounts of Prominent Palestinian Voices Said Ziad and Khaled Safi

The Palestine Chronicle 

Social media platform X has shut down the accounts of Palestinian researcher and political analyst Said Ziad and digital media consultant Khaled Safi, amid continuing restrictions on Palestinian content online. The closures affected two prominent voices publishing news, commentary and analysis on Palestine and political developments, Quds News Network reported Saturday. No reasons were provided in the report for either closure, and it remained unclear whether the accounts had been suspended temporarily or permanently. The decisions come amid repeated complaints from Palestinian journalists, researchers and activists about account bans, restrictions on publishing and reduced reach for their posts, particularly those documenting events on the ground.

Bots, deepfakes and surveillance: Israel’s election goes to war online

 Aljazeera 

Polls show the blocs linked to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the opposition, led by former Chief of Staff Gadi Eisenkot, are locked in a virtual tie before Tuesday’s general election. Efforts to mobilise supporters, win voters and attack opponents are being played out online through a series of social media advertisements and doctored AI videos. Many of these paint a bleak vision, the outcome depending on whether the party is on the right or centre, of Israel if their rivals win. On Thursday, the Israeli liberal daily Haaretz reported that dozens of online bots created to undermine the Iranian government were being repurposed to spread campaign propaganda supporting Netanyahu and his Likud party, and warn voters of the dangers posed by Eisenkot and former Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, who make up part of the opposition bloc.