{"id":171432,"date":"2020-11-02T12:00:19","date_gmt":"2020-11-02T12:00:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=171432"},"modified":"2024-06-12T21:24:58","modified_gmt":"2024-06-12T20:24:58","slug":"social-medias-erasure-of-palestinians-is-a-grim-warning-for-our-future","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2020\/11\/social-medias-erasure-of-palestinians-is-a-grim-warning-for-our-future\/","title":{"rendered":"Social Media\u2019s Erasure of Palestinians Is a Grim Warning for Our Future"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Facebook, Google and Twitter are not neutral platforms. They control the digital public square to aid the powerful \u2013 and can cancel any of us overnight.<\/em><\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n
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26 Oct 2020 – <\/em>There is a growing unease that the decisions taken by social media corporations can have a harmful impact on our lives. These platforms, despite enjoying an effective monopoly over the virtual public square, have long avoided serious scrutiny or accountability.<\/p>\n

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In a new Netflix documentary, The Social Dilemma<\/i>, former Silicon Valley executives warn of a dystopian future. Google, Facebook and Twitter have gathered vast quantities of data on us to better predict and manipulate our desires. Their products are gradually rewiring our brains to addict us to our screens and make us more pliable to advertisers. The result, as we are consigned to discrete ideological echo chambers, is ever greater social and political polarisation and turmoil<\/a>.<\/p>\n

As if to underline the ever-tightening grip these tech corporations exert on our lives, Facebook and Twitter decided this month to openly interfere in the most contentious US presidential election in living memory. They censored<\/a> a story that could harm\u00a0the electoral prospects of Joe Biden, the Democratic challenger to incumbent President Donald Trump.<\/p>\n

Given that nearly half of Americans receive their news chiefly via Facebook<\/a>, the ramifications of such a decision on our political life were not hard to interpret. In excising any debate about purported corruption and influence-peddling by Biden\u2019s son, Hunter, carried out in his father\u2019s name, these social media platforms stepped firmly into the role of authoritarian arbiter<\/a> of what we are allowed to say and know.<\/p>\n

\u2018Monopoly gatekeeper\u2019<\/h3>\n

Western publics are waking up very belatedly to the undemocratic power social media wields over them. But if we wish to understand where this ultimately leads, there is no better case study than the very different ways Israelis and Palestinians have been treated by the tech giants.<\/p>\n

The treatment of Palestinians online serves as a warning that it would be foolish indeed to regard these globe-spanning corporations as politically neutral platforms, and their decisions as straightforwardly commercial. This is to doubly misunderstand their role.<\/p>\n

Social media firms are now effectively monopolistic communication grids \u2013 similar to the electricity and water grids, or the phone network of a quarter of a century ago. Their decisions are therefore no longer private matters, but instead have huge social, economic and political consequences. That is part of the reason why the US justice department launched a lawsuit last week against Google for acting<\/a> as a \u201cmonopoly gatekeeper for the internet\u201d.<\/p>\n

Google, Facebook and Twitter have no more a right to arbitrarily decide who and what they host on their sites than telecoms companies once had a right to decide whether a customer should be allowed a phone line. But unlike the phone company, social media corporations control not just the means of communication, but the content too. They can decide, as the Hunter Biden story shows, whether their customers get to participate in vital public debates about who leads them.<\/p>\n

The Hunter Biden decision is as if the phone company of old not only listened in to conversations, but was able to cut the line if it did not like the politics of any particular customer.<\/p>\n

In fact, it is even worse than that. Social media now deliver the news to large sections of the population. Their censoring of a story is more akin to the electricity company turning off the power to everyone\u2019s homes for the duration of a TV broadcast to ensure no one can see it.<\/p>\n

Censorship by stealth<\/h3>\n

The tech giants are the wealthiest, most powerful corporations in human history, their riches measured in hundreds of billions, and now trillions, of dollars. But the argument that they are apolitical \u2013 aiming simply to maximise profits \u2013 was never true.<\/p>\n

They have every reason to promote politicians who side with them by committing not to break up their monopolies or regulate their activities, or, better still, by promising to weaken controls that might prevent them from growing even more fabulously rich and powerful.<\/p>\n

Conversely, the tech giants also have every incentive to use the digital space to penalise and marginalise political activists who urge greater regulation either of their activities, or of the marketplace more generally.<\/p>\n

Unlike their explicit deletion of the Hunter Biden story, which incensed the Trump administration, social media corporations more usually censor by stealth. That power is wielded through algorithms, the secret codes that decide whether something or someone appears in a search result or on a social media feed. If they desire, these tech titans can cancel any one of us overnight.<\/p>\n

This is not just political paranoia. The disproportionate impact<\/a> of algorithm changes on \u201cleft-leaning\u201d websites \u2013 those most critical of the neoliberal system that has enriched social media corporations \u2013 was highlighted<\/a> this month by the Wall Street Journal.<\/p>\n

Wrong kinds of speech<\/h3>\n

Politicians increasingly understand the power of social media, which is why they want to harness it as best they can for their own ends. Since the shock of Trump\u2019s election victory in late 2016, Facebook, Google and Twitter executives have regularly found themselves dragged before legislative oversight<\/a> committees in the US and UK.<\/p>\n

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Politicians have also begun holding internet corporations responsible for \u201cforeign interference\u201d in western elections \u2013 typically blamed on Russia \u2013 despite a dearth of serious evidence for most of their allegations<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Political pressure is being exerted not to make the corporations more transparent and accountable, but to steer them towards enforcing even more assiduously restrictions on the wrong kinds of speech \u2013 whether it be violent racists on the right or critics of capitalism and western government policy on the left.<\/p>\n

For that reason, social media\u2019s original image as a neutral arena of information sharing, or as a tool for widening public debate and increasing civic engagement, or as a discourse leveller between the rich and powerful and weak and marginalised, grows ever more hollow.<\/p>\n

Separate digital rights<\/h3>\n

Nowhere are ties between tech and state officials more evident than in their dealings with Israel. This has led to starkly different treatment of digital rights for Israelis and Palestinians. The online fate of Palestinians points to a future in which the already-powerful will gain ever greater control over what we know and what we are allowed to think, and over who is visible and who is erased from public life.<\/p>\n

Israel was well-positioned to exploit social media before most other states had recognised its importance in manipulating popular attitudes and perceptions. For decades, Israel had, in part, outsourced an official programme of hasbara \u2013 or state propaganda \u2013 to its own citizens and supporters abroad. As new digital platforms emerged, these partisans were only too willing to expand<\/a> their role.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Israel had another advantage. After the 1967 occupation of the West Bank, Jerusalem and Gaza, Israel began crafting a narrative of state victimhood by redefining antisemitism to suggest it was now a particular affliction of the left, not the right. So-called \u201cnew antisemitism\u201d did not target Jews, but related instead to criticism<\/a> of Israel and support for Palestinian rights.<\/p>\n

This highly dubious narrative proved easy to condense into social media-friendly soundbites.<\/p>\n

Israel still routinely describes any Palestinian resistance to its belligerent occupation or its illegal settlements as \u201cterrorism\u201d, and any support from other Palestinians as \u201cincitement\u201d. International solidarity with Palestinians is characterised as \u201cdelegitimisation\u201d and equated with antisemitism.<\/p>\n

\u2018Flood the internet\u2019<\/h3>\n

As far back as 2008, it emerged that a pro-Israel media lobby group, Camera, had been orchestrating covert efforts by Israel loyalists to infiltrate the online encyclopedia Wikipedia to edit entries<\/a> and \u201crewrite history\u201d\u00a0in ways favourable to Israel. Soon afterwards, politician Naftali Bennett helped organise<\/a> courses teaching \u201cZionist editing\u201d of Wikipedia.<\/p>\n

In 2011, the Israeli army declared social media a new \u201cbattleground\u201d and assigned \u201ccyber warriors\u201d to wage combat<\/a> online. In 2015, Israel\u2019s foreign ministry set up an additional command centre to recruit young, tech-savvy former soldiers from 8200, the army\u2019s cyber intelligence unit, to lead the battle<\/a> online.\u00a0Many have gone on to establish hi-tech firms<\/a> whose spying software became integral to the functioning of social media.<\/p>\n

An app launched in 2017, Act.IL, mobilised Israel partisans to \u201cswarm\u201d sites hosting either criticism of Israel or support for Palestinians. The initiative<\/a>, supported by Israel\u2019s ministry of strategic affairs, was headed by veterans of Israeli intelligence services.<\/p>\n

According to the Forward, a US Jewish weekly, Israel\u2019s intelligence services liaise closely with Act.IL and request help in getting content, including videos, removed by social media platforms. The Forward observed shortly after the app was rolled out: \u201cIts work so far offers a startling glimpse of how it could shape the online conversations about Israel without ever showing its hand.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sima Vaknin-Gil, a former Israeli military censor who was then assigned to Israel\u2019s strategic affairs ministry, said the goal was to \u201ccreate a community of fighters\u201d whose job was to \u201cflood the internet\u201d with Israeli propaganda<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Willing allies<\/h3>\n

With advantages measured in personnel numbers and ideological zeal, in tech and propaganda experience, and in high-level influence in Washington and Silicon Valley, Israel was soon able to turn social media platforms into willing allies in its struggle to marginalise Palestinians online.<\/p>\n

In 2016, Israel\u2019s justice ministry was boasting that Facebook, Google and YouTube were \u201ccomplying with up to 95 percent of Israeli requests<\/a> to delete content\u201d, almost all of it Palestinian. The social media companies did not confirm this figure.<\/p>\n

The Anti-Defamation League, a pro-Israel lobby group with a history of smearing Palestinian organisations and Jewish groups critical of Israel, established a \u201ccommand centre\u201d in Silicon Valley in 2017 to monitor<\/a> what it termed \u201conline hate speech\u201d. That same year, it was appointed a \u201ctrusted flagger\u201d organisation for YouTube, meaning<\/a> its reporting of content for removal was prioritised.<\/p>\n

At a 2018 conference in Ramallah hosted by 7amleh, a Palestinian online advocacy group, local Google and Facebook representatives barely hid their priorities. It was important to their bottom line to avoid upsetting governments with the power to constrain their commercial activities \u2013 even if those governments were systematically violating<\/a> international law and human rights. In this battle, the Palestinian Authority carries no weight at all. Israel presides over <\/a>Palestinians\u2019\u00a0communications and internet infrastructure. It controls the Palestinian economy and its key resources.<\/p>\n

Since 2016, Israel\u2019s justice ministry has reportedly suppressed tens of thousands<\/a>of Palestinian posts. In a completely opaque process, Israel\u2019s own algorithms detect content<\/a> it deems \u201cextremist\u201d and then requests its removal. Hundreds of Palestinians have been arrested by Israel over social media posts, chilling<\/a> online activity.<\/p>\n

Human Rights Watch warned late last year that Israel and Facebook were often blurring<\/a> the distinction between legitimate criticism of Israel and incitement. Conversely, as Israel has shifted ever further rightwards, the Netanyahu government and social media platforms have not stemmed a surge of posts in Hebrew promoting anti-Palestinian incitement and calling for violence. 7amleh has noted that Israelis post racist or inciteful material against Palestinians<\/a>\u00a0roughly every minute.<\/p>\n

News agencies shut down<\/h3>\n

As well as excising tens of thousands of Palestinian posts, Israel has persuaded Facebook to take down<\/a> the accounts of major Palestinian news agencies and leading journalists.<\/p>\n

By 2018, the Palestinian public had grown so incensed that a campaign of online protests and calls to boycott Facebook were led under the hashtag #FBcensorsPalestine. In Gaza, demonstrators accused<\/a> the company of being \u201canother face of occupation\u201d.<\/p>\n

Activism in solidarity with Palestinians in the US and Europe has been similarly targeted. Ads for films, as well as the films themselves, have been<\/a> taken down<\/a>and websites removed.<\/p>\n

Last month, Zoom, a video conferencing site that has boomed during the Covid-19 pandemic, joined YouTube and Facebook in censoring<\/a> a webinar organised by San Francisco State University because it included Leila Khaled, an icon of the Palestinian resistance movement now in her seventies.<\/p>\n

On Friday, Zoom blocked<\/a> a second scheduled appearance by Khaled\u00a0\u2013 this time in a University of Hawaii webinar on censorship \u2013 as well as a spate of other events across the US to protest against her cancellation by the site. A statement concerning the day of action said campuses were \u201cjoining in the campaign to resist corporate and university silencing of Palestinian narratives and Palestinian voices\u201d.<\/p>\n

The decision, a flagrant attack on academic freedom, was reportedly taken after the social media groups were heavily pressured<\/a> by the Israeli government and anti-Palestinian lobby groups, which labelled the webinar \u201cantisemitic\u201d.<\/p>\n

Wiped off the map<\/h3>\n

The degree to which the tech giants\u2019 discrimination against Palestinians is structural and entrenched has been underscored by the years-long struggle of activists both to include Palestinian villages on online maps and GPS services, and to name the Palestinian territories as \u201cPalestine\u201d, in accordance with Palestine\u2019s recognition<\/a> by the United Nations.<\/p>\n

That campaign has largely floundered, even though more than a million people have signed a petition<\/a> in protest. Both Google and Apple have proved highly resistant to these appeals; hundreds of Palestinian villages are missing from their maps of the occupied West Bank, while Israel\u2019s illegal settlements are identified in detail, accorded the same status as the Palestinian communities that are shown.<\/p>\n

The occupied Palestinian territories are subordinated under the name \u201cIsrael\u201d, while Jerusalem is presented as Israel\u2019s unified and undisputed capital, just as Israel claims \u2013 making the occupation of the Palestinian section of the city invisible.<\/p>\n

These are far from politically neutral decisions. Israeli governments have long pursued a Greater Israel ideology that requires driving Palestinians off their lands. This year, that dispossession programme was formalised with plans, backed by the Trump administration, to annex<\/a> swathes of the West Bank.<\/p>\n

Google and Apple are effectively colluding in this policy by helping to erase Palestinians\u2019 visible presence in their homeland. As two Palestinian scholars, George Zeidan and Haya Haddad, recently noted<\/a>: \u201cWhen Google and Apple erase Palestinian villages from their navigation, but proudly mark settlements, the effect is complicity in the Israeli nationalist narrative.\u201d<\/p>\n

Out of the shadows<\/h3>\n

Israel\u2019s ever-tightening relationship with social media corporations has played out largely behind the scenes. But these ties moved decisively out of the shadows in May, when Facebook announced that its new oversight board would include Emi Palmor, one of the architects of Israel\u2019s online repression<\/a> policy towards Palestinians.<\/p>\n

The board will issue precedent-setting rulings to help shape Facebook\u2019s and Instagram\u2019s censorship and free speech policies. But as the former director-general of the justice ministry, Palmor has shown no commitment to online free speech. Quite the reverse: she worked hand-in-hand with the tech giants to censor<\/a> Palestinian posts and shut down Palestinian news websites. She oversaw the transformation of her department into what the human rights organisation Adalah has called<\/a> the Orwellian \u201cMinistry of Truth\u201d.<\/p>\n

Tech corporations are now the undeclared, profit-driven arbiters of our speech rights. But their commitment is not to open and vigorous public debate, online transparency or greater civic engagement. Their only commitment is to the maintenance of a business environment in which they avoid any regulation by major governments infringing on their right to make money.<\/p>\n

The appointment of Palmor perfectly illustrates the corrupting relationship between government and social media. Palestinians know only too well how easy it is for technology to diminish and disappear the voices of the weak and oppressed, and to amplify the voices of the powerful.<\/p>\n

Many more of us could soon find ourselves sharing the online fate of Palestinians.<\/p>\n

___________________________________________<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/em>Jonathan Cook is an award-winning British journalist based in Nazareth, Israel, since 2001. He is the author of: <\/em>Blood and Religion: The Unmasking of the Jewish State (2006); <\/em>Israel and the Clash of Civilisations: Iraq, Iran and the Plan to Remake the Middle East (2008); and <\/em>Disappearing Palestine: Israel\u2019s Experiments in Human Despair (2008). In 2011 he was awarded the Martha Gellhorn Special Prize<\/a> for Journalism.<\/em> The same year, Project Censored<\/a> voted one of Jonathan\u2019s reports, \u201cIsrael brings Gaza entry restrictions to West Bank\u201d, the ninth most important story censored in 2009-10.<\/em><\/p>\n

Go to Original \u2013 jonathan-cook.net<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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