Digital Rights Weekly Update: 12 - 18 December

When silencing dissent backfires: How Western censorship fuels the very instability it claims to prevent

MEMO

Over the past year a growing number of critics of Israeli policy have faced direct institutional and digital penalties. Social media platforms have suspended accounts citing vague violations of policy while universities and research centers have quietly distanced themselves from scholars whose analysis challenges dominant narratives. One of the clearest recent examples is the suspension of the X account of Dr Shirin Saeidi a Middle East scholar whose public commentary on Gaza placed her at odds with prevailing political sensitivities. Around the same time, she was removed from her affiliation with the Middle East Studies Center at the University of Arkansas; a move that raised serious concerns about academic freedom and viewpoint discrimination. The issue here is not one individual career but the precedent such actions establish. When dissenting analysis becomes professionally costly the boundaries of permissible debate shrink rapidly.

Internet shutdowns in armed conflict: a typology of harms

Access Now

Deliberate disruptions to connectivity during armed conflict can take different forms; from direct attacks on ICT infrastructure and repair crews, cyberattacks, throttling, and restrictions on mobile data, to blocking the import and installation of communications equipment or access to the fuel needed to run telecommunications networks. Irrespective of how these shutdowns occur, the result is often the same: cutting off populations from communication, information, and assistance, as a means of asserting control. Nowhere has this been clearer in the past few years than in Gaza and Sudan, where the destruction of telecommunications infrastructure has cut off millions of people.

Big tech and the architecture of the Israeli genocide against Palestinians: From execution to media whitewashing

MEMO

The collaboration between Israel and Silicon Valley goes far beyond hardware and algorithms, encompassing narrative control. According to Drop Site News, Google signed a six-month, $45 million contract with the office of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to promote government disinformation and downplay the humanitarian crisis in Gaza. Signed in late June, the agreement made Google a “key entity” in Netanyahu’s PR strategy. The PR campaign was launched in response to international outrage after Israel violated the ceasefire on 2 March and blocked food, medicine, and fuel from entering Gaza. The Google contract was part of Israel’s digital disinformation effort claiming “there is no hunger” in Gaza. In other words, while Palestinian babies were starving to death, Google was fattening its checkbook, serving as Netanyahu’s pernicious digital PR machine to obscure the crime.

Is Tiktok paying the price for surge in pro-Palestinian content?

The Business Standard

On 31 October last year, Axios reported, "On TikTok, views of pro-Palestine posts far surpass views of pro-Israel posts." To put things into perspective, the report found that, from 23-30 October, 87k posts on the app was #standwithPalestine which garnered 285 million views. In contrast, over the same period, 9k posts on the app was #standwithIsrael which garnered 64 million views. A week earlier, over 16-23 October, 123k posts on the app with #standwithPalestine garnered only 11 million views. In contrast, only 8k posts on the app with #standwithIsrael garnered more views at 12 million. This is to say, the Axios report indicates a major shift in people's opinions and perspectives on Israel-Palestine in October 2023 on TikTok. TikTok has over 1 billion users worldwide. According to Statista, as of January 2024, nearly 40% of users belong to the 18-24 age group.