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REDFLAG | 14 JUNE 2021 PUBLICATION OF SOCIALIST ALTERNATIVE REDFLAG.ORG.AU

10

Tech giants help

Israel muzzle

Palestinians

Jonathan Cook arguing that its work contributed to national secu- content relate to Facebook and its other major
rity. Since 2016, the cyber unit has removed many platform, Instagram, both of which are heavily
tens—and more likely hundreds—of thousands used by Palestinians. The next most targeted
of Palestinian social media posts in collaboration site was YouTube, where Palestinians often post
with global tech corporations. videos showing attacks by Jewish settlers illegally
srael’s caretaker prime minister, Benja- The posts are erased without any legal over- taking over Palestinian land or Israeli soldiers
min Netanyahu, sought to shut down all sight and usually without notifying users, Adalah invading Palestinian communities. The accounts
use of the popular video-sharing app Tik- pointed out. In many cases, users’ accounts are of Palestinian news agencies and journalists have
Tok in Israel last month. The attempt to suspended or removed entirely, or access to whole also been repeatedly shut down.
censor TikTok, details of which emerged websites blocked. The vast bulk of those being Eghbariah noted that submissions by Israel’s
I at the end of May, is one of a number of silenced are Palestinians—either those under a cyber unit to social media platforms had skyrock-
reported attempts by Israel to control social media belligerent Israeli occupation or those who live eted since it was set up. In 2019, the last year for
content during last month’s military assault on inside Israel with degraded citizenship. which there are figures, some 19,600 requests to
the Gaza Strip. The cyber unit was established in late 2015, part remove content were submitted—an eightfold
Netanyahu tried to impose the blackout as Isra- of a raft of measures by Israel purportedly intend- increase on three years earlier. He added that each
el faced an international social media outcry over ed both to identify “terrorists” before they strike referral to a tech company could relate to tens or
its eleven-day attack on Gaza, which killed more and to curb what Israel describes as “incitement”. hundreds of posts, and that the removal of a whole
than 250 Palestinians, and the violent repression Given the opaque nature of the process, it is website typically counted as a single request.
by Israeli police of Palestinian protests in occupied impossible to know what content is being taken “What’s noticeable is the increasing coopera-
East Jerusalem and inside Israel. Government law down, Rabea Eghbariah, one of the Adalah lawyers tion rate of the social media platforms”, he said. “In
officers are understood to have resisted the move. who filed a petition against the unit to Israel’s high 2016, three-quarters of Israeli requests were com-
Benny Gantz, the defence minister, also lob- court, told the Electronic Intifada. Examples in the plied with. By 2019 that had risen to 90 per cent.”
bied senior officials at Facebook and TikTok to Israeli media, however, suggest that Israel regu- Human Rights Watch is among those who
crack down on posts critical of Israel, labelling larly targets posts critical of Israel’s belligerent have criticised Israel for blurring the distinc-
them incitement and support for terror. The tech occupation or express solidarity with Palestinians. tion between legitimate criticism made by
giants responded by agreeing to act “quickly The court petition to end the cyber unit’s work Palestinians and incitement. By contrast, the
and effectively,” according to a statement from was filed in November 2019 by Adalah, which rep- Palestinian digital rights group 7amleh has noted,
Gantz’s office. resents 1.8 million Palestinian citizens, a fifth of Israel rarely takes action against Israeli Jews, even
The revelations follow widespread reports last Israel’s population. According to Adalah, the unit’s though they are responsible for posting racist or
month that social media corporations regularly methods violate “the constitutional rights of free- inciteful material roughly every minute.
removed posts that referred to the Jerusalem dom of expression and due process”. In approving And the politicised nature of Israel’s crack-
neighbourhood of Sheikh Jarrah, where Israel those methods, Adalah observed, the courts had down on social media is often hard to disguise. In
recently stepped up moves to force out Palestinian conferred on the Israeli state the “unchecked” December 2017, Nariman Tamimi was detained for
families and replace them with Jewish settlers. power “to govern online speech” and had allowed incitement. She had streamed a video on Facebook
Social media users and digital rights organisa- private tech companies to usurp control of the of her then 16-year-old daughter, Ahed, confront-
tions also reported censorship of posts about the judicial process. ing and slapping an Israeli soldier who was
al-Aqsa mosque compound in Jerusalem. Eghbariah said Palestinians could rarely chal- invading their home in the occupied West Bank
Threats of expulsions in Sheikh Jarrah and an lenge their silencing on social media. The tech moments after his unit shot her cousin.
invasion by Israeli soldiers of al-Aqsa were the companies do not reveal when Israel is behind Dareen Tatour, a poet from the town of Reine,
main triggers causing Hamas to fire rockets into the censorship or what “terms of service” have next to Nazareth, spent years either in jail or un-
Israel last month. Israel responded by destroying been violated. der strict house arrest for supposedly glorifying
swaths of Gaza. In court, Israeli officials defended their sweep- violence in a poem. Experts said the lines had
Israel’s success in manipulating social media ing suppression of online content by arguing that been misunderstood by Israel’s security services.
last month follows warnings from Israeli human ultimately social media companies like Google Indeed, errors in translations from Arabic have
rights groups about the longer-term threat of and Facebook were free to decide whether to been regularly evident. In a case in October 2017, a
Israeli censorship faced by Palestinians. Adalah, a accede to its requests. However, Israeli officials Palestinian labourer was arrested for supposedly
legal rights group in Israel, said a shadowy Israeli have previously boasted that the tech giants threatening a terrorist attack on Facebook before
government “cyber unit”—which works hand in almost always agree to remove whatever content it was discovered that the Arabic expression he
hand with tech giants like Facebook and Twitter— Israel demands. In 2016, the Ministry of Justice re- used meant “good morning”.
had been given “a blank cheque” to police social ported that Facebook and Google were “complying In 2019, 7amleh reported that fears over
media and muzzle online dissent. with up to 95 percent of Israeli requests to delete this online crackdown had left two-thirds of
Israel’s Supreme Court ruled in April that content”—almost all of it Palestinian. Palestinians worried about expressing their
the cyber unit could continue its often secretive Eghbariah told the Electronic Intifada that political views on social media.
operations from inside the Justice Ministry, some 80 percent of Israel’s referrals for removing Other governments may look to the Israeli