Yesterday, I was using Facebook when a message popped on my screen saying that a post I'd published on the platform had been found to be "hate speech." My account was suspended for seven days. I would have no access to publishing content or comments during that time. The post consisted of a link to an Al Monitor article about a Palestinian family which had … [Read more...]
The Selling of the Israeli Surveillance State
I delivered this paper last month at the UC Berkeley conference, Virtual Internment: Islamophobia, Surveillance and Unequal Citizenship. It was sponsored by the Islamophobia Research and Documentation Project directed by Hatem Bazian. The video of my talk is posted here. Israel’s military-intelligence apparatus specializes in developing cyber-technology, … [Read more...]
Twitter Outlaws “Yid” as “Hate Speech”
Today is Censorship Day at my blog. Today, a group of pro-Israel Twitter trolls joined in reporting my account after I called one of them a treife Yid. Here is a different post in the thread containing the same phrase, which apparently Twitter had not (yet) censored. The culprits behind the lock-out of my account are the two mentioned in the tweet: Lern … [Read more...]
Facebook: People Last, Censors First
My recent bout of censorship at the hands of Facebook and Twitter has taught me (at least) one thing. Social media began, at least in the utopian mind of its early enthusiasts, as a way to democratize and decentralize power. It offered everyone, rich or poor, a voice. Everyone could rise if their content was interesting and useful enough to the audience. It … [Read more...]
