In the spring of 2021, Muna el-Kurd, a Palestinian activist from Jerusalem residing in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood, launched the hashtag #save_sheikh_jarrah as part of a social media campaign to shed light on the imminent forced expulsion of her family and others in the neighborhood, as well as continuous attempts by settlers to conquer their homes.
At the height of engagement with their plight, Instagram resorted to restricting Muna el-Kurd’s account, prohibiting her from livestreaming. This restriction was not just imposed on el-Kurd, Palestinian journalists, activists, and influencers were also barred from publishing posts and stories, and they were also prohibited from using the livestreaming function. This came at a time when there was a peak in the frequency of publishing news from the field and transmitting the truth about the Israeli Occupation’s assault on Jerusalem, Al-Aqsa Mosque, and Gaza. And that was through online users engaging with different platforms and launching digital campaigns to support the neighborhood’s residents, as well as using language that appealed to universal audiences, which helped push the case of Sheikh Jarrah to the top of issues that concerned global public opinion.
Instagram’s policies represented one of many continuous and systemic attempts adopted by social media platforms to suppress Palestinian digital content. Starting from May 2021, social media companies have removed Palestinian content from their platforms without providing any clear justification. According to 7amleh’s monitoring of social media platform procedures, restrictions imposed on Palestinian content are linked to the activity of the Cyber Unit affiliated with the Israeli Justice Ministry, which has reported thousands of cases to social media companies in the past years without providing any legal proceedings that supplement their claims of violations.
In October 2021, The Intercept, a well-known nonprofit American news organization, published a comprehensive report revealing for the first time Facebook's secret blacklist, which includes thousands of “dangerous individuals and organizations” and automatically and immediately prevents anything they post from reaching wide audiences. Among the 4,000 member list, 55 names are of Palestinian organizations and figures, as well as charitable associations.
The report addressed Facebook’s global policy, but it clearly pointed out that “the list may be too blunt an instrument to be used effectively by Facebook moderators…In May [2021], Facebook deleted a variety of posts by Palestinians attempting to document Israeli state violence at Al-Aqsa Mosque, the third holiest site in Islam, because company staff mistook it for an unrelated organization on the DIO list with “Al-Aqsa” in its name (of which there are several),
This list is a manifestation of the twofold violations Palestinians endure: the violation committed by digital companies and platforms against Palestinian coverage of Israeli crimes against the Palestinian people, as well as the violation executed through “technical” mechanisms used to suppress the Palestinian narrative, stifle free speech, and criminalize Palestinian expression and activism.
The report raises central questions that are crucial in understanding the dynamics of the digital media space: Is erasing Palestinian content a result of the mere incompetence of some administrators, or is it indicative of the close collaboration between global social media companies and Israel? How pervasive is the phenomenon of deleting Palestinian content and preventing freedom of expression on social media platforms? How is Israel able to enforce its policies on these global corporations and add Arab and Palestinian figures and entities to blacklists? What mechanisms does Israel use in this context? And what can be done to expand the space for Palestinian expression in the digital space, which has proven to have great stakes in the Palestinian struggle?
Violations in the digital space in numbers
Since the Internet began to form as a media space in the late 1990s and early 2000s, it was not spared Israel’s narrative war against websites, blogs, and forums that it accused of terrorism and tried to take down by any and all means. However, we can point to the density of surveillance of Palestinian content by social media companies that escalated during the Palestinian uprising of October 2015. During that uprising, social media platforms turned into an active space used by Palestinians extensively to convey their narrative and document human rights violations through sound, image, and live broadcasting to the entire world.
Digital violations against Palestinian content began to increase with the wave of individual stabbing operations in the West Bank and Occupied Jerusalem in 2016, where around 200 Palestinian pages and accounts were targeted. The percentage of violations increased in 2017 on YouTube and Facebook in particular, reaching 280 violations which included banning publications, closing accounts, and deleting pages. In 2018, the violations reached 500 in the form of account bans, content deletions, and page closures. Journalists had the largest share of these violations, which were concentrated more so on Facebook than on any other platform.
In 2019, there was another noticeable increase in targetting Palestinian content, with over 1,000 digital violations of Palestinian rights recorded. Facebook ranked first among social media platforms with 950 violations, which included the removal, suspension, or banning of pages and personal accounts. The banned terms categorized as incitement included “Hamas,” “Jihad,” “Martyr,” “Al-Qassam,” “Al-Saraya,” “Hezbollah,” and terms like “Prisoners” and “Fedayeen.”
7amleh documented 1,200 violations in 2021 committed by several social media platforms, which included closing and deleting accounts, restricting posts and livestreams, as well as restricting the reach of posts and the ability to follow accounts. Digital violations increased significantly during the May 2021 uprising. 7amleh documented 500 reports of Palestinian digital rights violations between May 6 and 19 alone. This indicated a noticeable increase in social media platforms’ surveillance of Palestinian political discourse during times of crisis. During this period, a significant amount of Palestinian content was removed from platforms, including other measures taken to suspend and close accounts, reduce the reach of posts, and other restrictions and violations.
Demands by the Cyber Unit are met by Facebook
The aforementioned data regarding digital violations indicate systemic cooperation between the Israeli establishment, Facebook, and other social media companies. What mechanisms does Israel use within this context to execute their goals?
In 2015, the “Israeli Cyber Unit,” an online surveillance unit operating within the Israeli Attorney General's Office, was established. The Unit is responsible for liaising with social media companies to impose censorship on content without providing legal proceedings or granting targeted users the right to appeal decisions, which are often carried out without their knowledge.
The “Cyber Unit” was primarily established to operate across three main areas relating to cyber and Internet crimes: collecting electronic information pertaining to computer crimes, digital evidence, wiretapping, and communication data; managing criminal cases in the field of computer and information crimes such as fraud, forgery, gambling, and sexual harassment; and implementing alternative enforcement measures to prevent damage caused by prohibited activities in cyberspace, including content removal activities, search result filtering, and the removal of users who participate in prohibited activities like defamation, privacy violations, and other phenomena such as cyberbullying.
While the stated purpose of the Cyber Unit is to ensure the safety of the digital space, most of the Unit's activity has been directed against posts that allegedly support a “terrorist organization” or promote incitement. The [Israeli] Supreme Court, therefore, found that the Unit's work in these cases is legal, and in turn, Facebook confessed to responding to about 90% of requests submitted by the Cyber Unit to remove Palestinian posts and accounts while only 1% of these posts included content related to inciting racism, privacy violations, or Video Law which is concerned with preventing sexual harassment, copyright violations, or advertising prostitution services among others.
The majority of complaints made by the Cyber Unit are accepted, and content is removed. For instance, 76.5% of the posts reported by the Unit were either partially or completely removed: In 2017, 12,351 posts were reported, and 88% were removed; In 2018, 14,283 posts were reported, and approximately 92% were removed; In 2019, 19,606 posts were reported, and around 90% were removed.
In addition, the summarized data released by the Public Prosecutor's Office in 2020 revealed that 144 criminal cases were opened by the Cyber Unit that year, compared to only 57 cases in 2019 and 16 cases in 2016. Around 7% of the criminal cases in 2020 were related to suspicions of security violations, while 5% of the criminal cases were considered to involve incitement. The above data relates to the regular work track. In the voluntary track, the data indicates excessive activity in the context of incitement and terrorism crimes that do not correspond to the percentage of indictments for such crimes. This showcases how most of the referrals in this track are related to posts by organizations defined by the Israeli government as terrorist organizations or organizations that incite terrorism or violence.
There is no information available about the criteria that the Cyber Unit uses to report content. Therefore, content is revealed without transparency, legal process, or a framework that gives users the ability to defend themselves against the claim that their posts are illegal or require removal.
One example of collaboration between the Cyber Unit and digital platforms is reflected in Facebook's deletion of the Al-Qastal news network's page from its site without any prior warning. This came after the network heavily covered the storming of Al-Aqsa Mosque, documenting the Israeli Occupation's attacks on worshippers. Al-Qastal considered the deletion to be at the request of the Israeli Occupation [authorities] to cover up its crimes against Palestinians, with reference to the Occupation's systematic and ongoing attempts to silence voices from Jerusalem in particular and hide its crimes in Palestine in general. It should be noted that the page was eventually reinstated after pressure from Palestinians and the international community.
Israeli efforts to combat Palestinian content on social media are not limited to the work of the Cyber Unit. Israeli government ministries and official entities have also built institutions and “digital communities” such as Act. IL and 4IL. Act. IL was established in cooperation with the Israeli Ministry of Strategic Affairs, the Rehman University, the American/Israeli Council, and other Zionist entities. 4IL was established by the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs with the aim of organizing and maximizing the process of submitting“popular” complaints by thousands of people and followers who act like electronic flies, conducting mass reporting operations against Palestinian content to force social networks to take it down.
Israeli legislation
The Israeli establishment does not solely rely on the Cyber Unit; it also works on establishing legislation and laws aimed at cracking down on Palestinian content. In this context, the Israeli government's legislative committee approved in late December 2021 the “Renewed Facebook Law Project,” which dates back to 2015, that aims to prevent what it calls “Palestinian incitement” on social media platforms in order to ensure those platforms’ compliance. This poses a serious threat to the right to freedom of opinion and expression and to the dissemination of content supporting the Palestinian cause online.
The “Facebook Law” enables the Israeli government to block websites and compel companies to remove any content it deems inappropriate, especially on social media platforms. It also grants authorities the power to persecute the authors of such content on the grounds of “committing a criminal offense,” “calling for incitement,” or posing a danger “to the security of Israel or people in it,” and forces social media companies and websites to comply with its practices and legal demands. Moreover, the terms used in the law, such as “undermining state security” and “terrorism,” are vague and ambiguous. Criminalizing the documentation of the violations committed by Israel against Palestinians contradicts international human rights law, opens the door to violating the right to freedom of expression and criticism, and eliminates the ability to expose the Occupation's crimes.
This legislation allows the Israeli security establishment to monitor user activities, persecute them, and even imprison them for expressing themselves. It also permits the use of artificial intelligence technology to identify “potential attackers,” which has led to many arrests, summons, and pursuits based on monitoring content critical of the Occupation and its policies or sharing images of martyrs or prisoners that the Israeli artificial intelligence classifies as “suspects” through “predictive policing” technology.
Israel’s online persecution is not only limited to the accounts of Palestinian factions and official political forces but also extends to personal accounts. A prominent example is the case of poet Dareen Tatour, who was arrested by Israel in 2015 for posting a poem on social media titled “Resist, My People.” She was charged with inciting violence and terrorism and supporting a terrorist organization. Her trial lasted for three consecutive years, resulting in a five-month prison sentence.
Another example is Israel's recent arrest of Sheikh Kamal al-Khatib based on statements and posts he made regarding Al-Aqsa Mosque and the events in Sheikh Jarrah, as well as tweets and posts on Facebook about the protests in Occupied Palestinian towns in the interior and the attacks by settler gangs on Arabs in Jaffa and Lydd. Similarly, the leader of the Sons of the Village Movement, Raja Eghbariya, was arrested in the city of Umm al-Fahm in the Palestinian Interior (Occupied lands since 1948) for authoring social media posts that Israel claimed incited violence and supported terrorist organizations. His arrest came after secret monitoring of his movements on the web.
Notwithstanding existing legislation aimed at combating the Palestinian narrative, the Israeli ministerial committee proposed a new law that would prohibit the filming or documentation of Israeli Occupation soldiers' crimes and would enforce severe penalties for violators. The proposed law stated that “whoever films, takes pictures, or records soldiers performing their duties with the aim of undermining the morale of soldiers will be sentenced to five years in prison. If filming is aimed at jeopardizing national security, the punishment will be 10 years.”
In addition, the proposed law included “a suggestion to prevent the publication of the contents of filming or recording on social networks or in the media,” which is justified as providing “optimal conditions” for soldiers to perform their duties without fear of any activist or organization publishing their images. This is a clear attempt to “silence criticism directed at the Occupation” and to primarily prevent human rights organizations from documenting army operations in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
Double standards
In complete contrast to the policies adopted by [social media] companies to remove Palestinian content and violate Palestinian freedom of expression, Israelis enjoy absolute freedom to post whatever they want on social media platforms pertaining to [events in Palestine], including posts that contain clear and explicit calls for killing Palestinians. Digital companies, specifically “Meta” platforms, do not treat Israeli content in the same manner they do Palestinian content. They do not remove racist and inciting phrases against Palestinians, nor do they address them. Such phrases include “death to Palestine,” “people in Gaza must be exterminated with pesticides,” “every Muslim is a dead terrorist,” and “proud Kahanist,” to name a few. Some of these calls are even posted in Arabic and remain visible to the public without any restrictions, conditions, or attempts to limit content spewing hate or incitement. Thus, we find that the algorithms of digital platforms are completely biased toward the Israeli side and mainly surveil Palestinian media platforms.
So, it is clear that major technology companies treat Palestinian and Israeli content differently and, therefore, cannot be considered neutral platforms. These companies are commercial companies that seek to maximize profit, and in order to operate within the market, they need the approval of the dominant governing party. In recent years, social the role taken by social media platforms has been clear in obscuring the Palestinian narrative and imposing unjustified censorship, restriction, or removal of Palestinian content due to pressure exerted by Israel on the administration of these platforms.
The policies that social media networks use to monitor Palestinian content limit the freedom of expression that Palestinians can exercise and their overall participation in political life. These policies pose a clear threat to Palestinian digital rights on various social media platforms, in addition to the way citizens receive information and access Palestinian news networks on these platforms. They also prevent Palestinians from posting about Israeli crimes and sharing their stories with the world.
Power dynamics in the physical world are replicated in the virtual realm. Social media networks, which seek to maximize profits, tend to align themselves with governments, including repressive regimes, and adapt to the policies of those governments that exploit these networks that train their staff to conceal the narrative and content that belongs to the targeted party while promoting the favored government’s narrative. This does not only happen with Palestinians but also with Kashmiris, Rohingyas, and other oppressed groups worldwide.
What can be done?
Given the importance of the digital space in shaping public opinion, raising awareness, and disseminating narratives, and in the face of the organized Israeli side that has weaponized this space and influenced social media company policies, we, unfortunately, witness the absence of serious Palestinian efforts to enhance Palestinian digital diplomacy. There is also a lack of coordination between popular and official Palestinian actors, civil society organizations, and universities to launch a unified struggle in the digital space to protect Palestinian content, present the truth, defend rights, increase solidarity, exert pressure on the Israeli authorities, and counter incitement and distortion.
What we can do now is enhance levels of coordination and train digitally active users, both Palestinians and supporters from all over Palestine and the world, to strengthen their engagement and ability to produce and disseminate quality content in multiple languages. These actions will have a tremendous impact on our cause, not only in the digital space but also in shaping awareness and attitudes among the public and decision-makers worldwide.
We also need to build local, regional, and international alliances, whether official or popular, to continue pressuring social media networks to change their discriminatory policies. Social media companies need to realize that they will lose financially and have their reputation affected negatively if they continue with these same discriminatory policies. This calls for the importance of having complementary roles in the Palestinian sphere among civil society organizations, media institutions, and official Palestinian authorities, in addition to recruiting regional actors, as Arabic is the third most used language on Facebook. We must also enlist the international solidarity movement, civil society organizations, and human rights organizations to embark on the legal avenues that will challenge these policies within American and European courts and in international institutions.