It Could Happen Here - How Social Media Censorship of Palestine Works

Episode Date: March 7, 2024

Shereen discusses the censoring of Palestine-related content that is increasingly happening both online and offline.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hi, I'm Ed Zitron, host of the Better Offline podcast, and we're kicking off our second season digging into tech's elite and how they've turned Silicon Valley into a playground for billionaires. From the chaotic world of generative AI to the destruction of Google search, Better Offline is your unvarnished and at times unhinged look at the underbelly of tech brought to you by an industry veteran with nothing to lose. Listen to Better Offline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, wherever else you get your podcasts from. On Thanksgiving Day, 1999, five-year-old Cuban boy Elian Gonzalez was found off the coast of Florida. And the question was,

should the boy go back to his father in Cuba? Mr. Gonzalez wanted to go home, and he wanted to take his son with him. Or stay with his relatives in Miami. Imagine that your mother died trying to get you to freedom. Listen to Chess Peace, the Elian Gonzalez story, on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

I found out I was related to the guy that I was dating. I don't feel emotions correctly. I collect my roommate's toenails and fingernails. Those were some callers from my call-in podcast, Therapy Gecko. It's a show where I take phone calls from anonymous strangers as a fake gecko therapist and try to learn a little bit about their lives. I know that's a weird concept, but I promise it's very interesting. Check it out for yourself by

searching for Therapy Gecko on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hello and welcome to It Could Happen Here. This is Shireen and today we are talking about, you guessed it, Palestine. I'm also gonna keep talking about Palestine because there has been a genocide happening for the past five months and also 76 years and I refuse to let it be forgotten about and I refuse to let it be something that we used to talk about because it's happening right now and we need to talk about it. So here I am, talking about it. And while being a public supporter of Palestine has never been popular in the United States, since October we've seen a significant increase in the silencing of Palestinian and pro-Palestinian voices,

and this is happening both online and offline. But let's first start with the digital sphere, where the censorship of Palestinian voices and pro-Palestinian content can have really dangerous consequences, especially since the vast majority of us consume our news via social media these days. Meta, for example, has a long history of systematically censoring Palestine-related content. While the company has stated that it's, quote, never their intention to suppress a particular community or point of view, AccessNow conducted a report where their documentation points to the opposite conclusion. The information in this episode when it comes to Meta in particular will be from the

findings of AccessNow in their report, because I don't think the report got the attention it deserved when it was published on February 19th. Denying the public from both expressing and seeing content supporting Palestine is a very dangerous game that only further bolsters Israeli propaganda as well as silences any criticism against the settler colony of Israel. This is not okay, and it should concern you, because you have the right to know the truth. This pattern of censorship is no glitch. Soon after Israel began bombarding Gaza and blatantly committing genocide last October, Palestinians and people sharing pro-Palestinian messages began to report that their content was being censored and suppressed on social media platforms, including on Facebook and Instagram. The platforms restricted and sometimes even

suspended the accounts of Palestinian journalists and activists both inside and outside of Gaza, and arbitrarily deleted a considerable amount of content, including documentation of atrocities and human rights abuses committed by Israel against the Palestinian people. of atrocities and human rights abuses committed by Israel against the Palestinian people. Examples of this online censorship show that it is rampant, systematic, and global. For instance, Human Rights Watch has documented 1,050 cases of peaceful content expressing support for Palestine, originating from more than 60 countries around the world, being removed between October and November 2023. Meanwhile, the Palestinian Observatory for Digital Rights Violations has documented around 1,043 instances of censorship between October 7th of 2023 and February 9th of this year, including on Facebook and Instagram.

From content removals to very blatant restrictions, the following examples illustrate the main patterns of censorship on Meta's platforms documented since October 7th, 2023. Our first example is Facebook's removal of content that was documenting the explosion at Al-Ahdi Arab Hospital. It removed content shared by people who were on the ground during the massacre and during the bombing. The automatic deletion of bystander content with evidentiary value, especially during times of war, not only violates people's ability to express themselves and freely access information, it also hinders current and future investigations into alleged war crimes and atrocities perpetrated in Gaza by Israel funded by the United States. There have also been suspensions of prominent Palestinian and Palestine-related accounts. Meta has banned and suspended scores of accounts that posted content about Palestine.

For instance, on October 10th, 2023, Manda Weiss reported that Instagram had twice suspended the account of Leila Warah, its West Bank video correspondent. It was only after Manda Weiss publicized the suspension that the platform quickly reinstated her account. Mehta also suspended the account of Gaza journalist and photographer Motaz Ezeiza, who gained more than 18.6 million followers for reporting on the genocide in Gaza. This forced him to create a new backup account under at Motagaza, which acquired more than 1 million followers within 24 hours. Meta later did reinstate Motaz's original account, but several of Azaza's posts showing dead or injured Palestinians were flagged by Instagram for possibly violating its policy on adult nudity and sexual activity. Under its DOI policy, which stands

for Dangerous Organizations and Individuals, Meta also permanently banned the Arabic and English language Facebook pages of Quds News Network, the largest and entirely volunteer-run Palestinian news outlet, which has over 10 million followers on Facebook. Other news outlets that Meta has temporarily suspended or banned include Aijal Radio Network, Breakthrough News, 24FM, and Palestinian Refugees Portal. In addition, Palestinian journalists Fatin Alwan, Saleh Al-Jafrawi, and Ahmed Shihab Al-Din have all experienced and continue to experience content takedowns and account restrictions on Instagram and Facebook. There have also been numerous examples of restrictions on pro-Palestinian users and content.

Here are some examples. Meta blocked Jerusalem-based activist Sanan Berk from live streaming on Instagram. It restricted Jewish-American artist and author Molly Crabapple's Instagram account. There have also been documented cases of Meta hiding Instagram comments that contain the Palestinian flag emoji for being, quote, potentially offensive. Many people have reported being barred from commenting on Instagram posts containing Palestine-related content. One user said that a comment was blocked for over 24 hours without explanation. People have also reported being unable to repost or reshare content related to Palestine in their Instagram stories. In addition to the usual screening that Meta imposes on graphic or violent content, Meta imposed a quote sensitive content warning before users could reshare Palestine-related posts via their Instagram stories.

In some instances, attempts to reshare such content generated a blank page and a message stating that quote something went wrong. and a message stating that, quote, something went wrong. Following the Al-Ahri Arab Hospital massacre, people reported being unable to reshare a video report that was criticizing Western media coverage of the bombing, either via their direct messages or Instagram stories. This video report was conducted by a Lebanese media outlet called Megaphone. Meta has also repeatedly discouraged users from following or sharing content from popular Palestinian accounts that were sharing updates on Gaza in the form of prompts saying, quote, are you sure you want to follow or mention this account? And warnings that certain accounts have, quote, repeatedly posted false information or violated Meta's community guidelines.

And perhaps the most disturbing incident, and one that I will never forget, and I hope you don't either, and if you haven't heard about this, buckle up, Instagram repeatedly auto-translated the word Palestinian or instances of the Palestinian flag used alongside the Arabic phrase alhamdulillah, which means praise be to God, on people's bios.

Alhamdulillah, by the be to God on people's bios. Alhamdulillah by the way is an extremely innocent phrase that is used by all people that speak Arabic essentially and it's said all the time. It's a very peaceful calming thing to say alhamdulillah thank you God but guess what they translated this into? Instagram translated the word Palestinian, the use of the Palestinian flag, along with Alhamdulillah in people's bios into Palestinian terrorists are fighting for their freedom. Palestinian terrorists are fighting for their freedom. Are you fucking kidding me? When a TikTok user uncovered this disturbing pattern, Meta apologized and fixed the issue. And we all moved on. One of the most insidious ways that Palestinian and pro-Palestinian voices are being censored and suppressed on Meta's platforms is via the restriction of certain accounts' reach and visibility without any explanation or notification, aka shadow banning. For example,

following the Lebanese media outlet Megaphone's coverage of the Al-Ahdi Arab hospital attack, its Instagram account, at Megaphone News, was hidden from search results. Evidence also suggests that on October 8th, 2023, Meta hid Instagram content that included the hashtag Al-Aqsa Flood from Vue. Meta's censorship of Palestinian voices and Palestinian-related content is far from new. In recent years, however, it has become increasingly pronounced, with a well-documented pattern of systematic censorship, algorithmic bias, and discriminatory content moderation emerging. During the 2021 Sheikh Jarrah protests, social media content expressing support for Palestinian rights was deleted, removed,

and shadow banned, while users who were sharing such content were suspended or prevented from commenting or live streaming, and pro-Palestinian hashtags were suppressed. These were all serious problems that Meta brushed off as, quote, a technical issue. Let's take a little breather, and when we come back, we'll talk about silencing that is outside of the digital world. So, BRB. Hey, I'm Jacqueline Thomas, the host of a brand new Black Effect original series, Black Lit, the podcast for diving deep into the rich world of Black literature. I'm Jack Peace Thomas, and I'm inviting you to join me and a vibrant community of literary enthusiasts dedicated to protecting and celebrating our stories. Black Lit is for the page turners,

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Listen to Blacklit on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, I'm Ed Zitron, host of the Better Offline podcast, and we're kicking off our second season digging into how tech's elite has turned Silicon Valley into a playground for billionaires. From the chaotic world of generative AI to the destruction of Google search, Better Offline is your unvarnished and at times unhinged look at the underbelly of tech from an industry veteran with nothing to lose. and with nothing to lose. This season, I'm going to be joined by everyone from Nobel-winning economists to leading journalists in the field.

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Listen to Gracias Come Again on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Okay, we're back. In addition to digital silencing, we have seen cases of silencing occurring offline as Americans are being fired or facing threats for speaking out in support of Palestine. An open letter published in Art Forum on October 19th declared, We support Palestinian liberation and call for an end to the killing and harming of all civilians. It was signed by thousands of artists, scholars, and cultural workers, including the Art World magazine's editor, David Velasco. A week later, Velasco was fired from the publication that he had worked at for 18 years,

reportedly after pushback from Martin Eisenberg, a major arts patron and Bed Bath & Beyond heir. Wow. At least four art forum editors have resigned in protest against Velasco's firing. And many, many more people have lost their jobs. Just a few quick examples. A Philadelphia sports writer was fired after tweeting quote solidarity with Palestine in criticism of a 76ers post that offered support to Israel after Hamas's attack. In another high-profile incident, a University of California Berkeley professor was sacked as editor-in-chief of the scientific journal eLife after he retweeted an Onion article that he said, quote, calls out indifference to the lives of Palestinian civilians.

A spokesperson for Palestine Legal, a civil rights group, says it has responded to more than 260 incidents of suppression against Palestinian rights activists over two weeks of October, more than it did in all of 2022. The Council on American Islamic Relations, also CAIR, which is a civil rights non-profit, says it received 774 complaints between October 7th and October 24th, which was the largest wave of complaints that it's handled since Donald Trump announced his Muslim ban in 2015. This wave has targeted professional activists as well as ordinary people who have spoken in defense of Palestinians. It has reportedly also escalated into death threats, as well as assaults and visits from the FBI to Muslim individuals and mosques.

In surprise to absolutely no one, in the United States, the highest levels of power have long In the words of Justin Sadowski, an attorney at CARE, the swift blowback against pro-Palestinian voices builds on decades of organized efforts to, quote, tar Palestinian rights speech as pro-terrorist or anti-Semitic. The late civil rights attorney Michael Ratner called this the quote Palestine exception to free speech. In 2015, CCR and Palestine Legal published a report on the tactics used by pro-Israel lobbying groups, school administrators, and public officials to shut down Palestinian rights activists. They included false accusations of anti-Semitism or support for terrorism, as well as legal threats and criminal investigations, and they often

succeeded in intimidating or deterring Palestinian solidarity activists from speaking out. And again, this pattern of silencing is not new. The prominent Palestinian-American scholar Rashid Khalidi recalls feeling overwhelmingly outnumbered at Columbia University in 2003 when pro-Israel advocates protested against him and other faculty as well as students who spoke out against Israel amid intense fighting in Gaza and the West Bank. News crews hounded him on campus And pro-Israel students even made a documentary about the controversy Khalidi says I think the narrative was pretty firmly in the hands of people who supported Israel But, he continued

There is a generational change taking place With young people having an entirely different set of views They consume different media And I think they're more educated, more worldly, and better informed than their elders. The recent laws against the boycotting of Israel in particular, which 36 states have enacted, directly stifle political advocacy by making people choose between their livelihoods and their first amendment rights. Last year, the Jewish-American scholar Nathan Thrall

announced that he had been disinvited from speaking at the University of Arkansas for refusing to sign an anti-boycott pledge that was required of public contractors by state law. Maybe after all this, you're asking yourself, so what do we do now? We do exactly what they don't want us to do. Exactly what they're afraid of us doing. Exactly what they're trying to deter us from doing.

Continue talking about Palestine and sharing news and images and information that exposes Israel's crime of genocide against the Palestinian people. The same way people say to vote with your dollar when it comes to boycotting certain brands and choosing where your money goes, you can decide how you want to use your social media platforms. What do you want to do with your digital presence? What do you stand for? Personally, I think the days of casually and incessantly posting about your life are behind us, or at least we're headed in that direction. We're utilizing social media in a different way now. Seeing how Gen Z has utilized TikTok to share information is a great example of that.

I don't think celebrity culture, unfortunately, will ever completely go away on social media, but I do think we are demanding more of our celebrities now. And I think especially as we're seeing quote-unquote trusted news sources peddle disinformation and propaganda in an irresponsible and appalling way, to put it very lightly, we are relying on each other to share real information. And in this case, our resources are coming from the people who are directly experiencing the horrors of genocide for the past five months and 76 years. And those voices must be amplified. There are a lot of solid arguments to be made against social media as a whole when it comes to whether or not it

benefits humanity. But I am seeing something shift now, where we are able to utilize this tool for our betterment. If it wasn't for social media, the movement for Palestinian liberation would not be where it is today. People who were previously uninformed would never have seen the reality of the situation were it not for our ability to learn from each other outside of the limitations of mainstream news. We are learning to trust the establishment less and trust each other more. And I think if we're able to use social media in this way, it's actually a net positive for us. It doesn't have to be empty and mind-numbing and a way to control us or get us to spend our money

to keep the capitalism machine in good working order. We can decide how we utilize our digital presence and the good that can come from it. And to be united in this way is extremely powerful, and it can ignite real change. And at the very least, it can be our way of spiting the powers that be and refusing to be sheep. Existing in an age of mass surveillance is frankly very terrifying, but seeing the lengths that companies like Meta will not only go to to surveil us, but to monitor what we consume, it's extremely revealing of how weak their power actually is. It's up to us to take back that power, especially now as we are witnessing

a genocide happen in real time on our silly little devices for the past five months and having people become aware of the slower genocide and ethnic cleansing that has taken place for 76 years. So keep talking about Palestine, both in person with your peers and family and online. I can't guarantee that you won't face pushback or repercussions because as we know that is a real possibility. But the community of people that you gain from learning of and speaking the truth far outweighs any individual fear. And I would rather stand for something than cower by myself or be controlled by fear. We do have the ability to change things. I have to believe that something else is possible. the ability to change things. I have to believe that something else is possible. But it starts with taking the blinders off and making a choice about how you want to utilize the tools at your

disposal rather than be utilized yourself. And that, my friends, is our episode for today. Thank you so much for listening and repel us down. It Could Happen Here is a production of Cool Zone Media. For more podcasts from Cool Zone Media, visit our website, coolzonemedia.com or check us out on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can find sources for It Could Happen Here updated monthly at coolzonemedia.com slash sources.

Thanks for listening. Hi, I'm Ed Zitron, host of at coolzonemedia.com slash sources. Thanks for listening. Hi, I'm Ed Zitron, host of the Better Offline podcast. And we're kicking off our second season digging into tech's elite and how they've turned Silicon Valley into a playground for billionaires. From the chaotic world of generative AI to the destruction of Google search, Better Offline is your unvarnished and at times unhinged look at the underbelly of tech brought to you by an industry veteran with nothing to lose. Listen to Bet Ruff Line on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, wherever else you get your podcasts from. On Thanksgiving Day 1999, five-year-old Cuban boy Elian Gonzalez was found off the coast of Florida.

And the question was, should the boy go back to his father in Cuba? Mr. Gonzalez wanted to go home, and he wanted to take his son with him. Or stay with his relatives in Miami? Imagine that your mother died trying to get you to freedom. Listen to Chess Peace, the Elian Gonzalez story, on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I found out I was related to the guy that I was dating. I don't feel emotions correctly.

I collect my roommate's toenails and fingernails. Those were some callers from my call-in podcast, Therapy Gecko. from my call-in podcast, Therapy Gecko. It's a show where I take phone calls from anonymous strangers as a fake gecko therapist and try to learn a little bit about their lives. I know that's a weird concept, but I promise it's very interesting. Check it out for yourself by searching for Therapy Gecko

on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.