Ramallah: Sada Social Center for Palestinian Digital Rights released a report titled “A Year of Digital Erasure of Palestinians,” which includes monitoring digital violations that coincided with Israeli attacks on Palestinians, from October 7, 2023, for a full year.
The report focused on the multiple dimensions of digital erasure, which included the suppression of Palestinian content, the imposition of censorship on social media and the targeting of Palestinian journalists.
According to the report, Palestinian content on social media platforms was subjected to over 23,000 digital violations. Meta platforms accounted for 56% of these violations, TikTok for 25%, X(Twitter) for 15%, and SoundCloud made up 3.7%.
During this period, more than 700 Palestinian WhatsApp numbers were banned, which further isolated the population and made it more difficult for them to communicate with the outside world. These cases represented 76% of Gaza’s population, contributing to a deepening digital crisis and imposing an almos
t complete digital isolation on the Strip.
Regarding journalists, the report stated that 29% of the total digital violations targeted journalists and media institutions. Sada Social received more than 1,200 complaints from journalists about attempts to hack their digital accounts, while 16 fake accounts were created using journalists’ names to tarnish their reputations and spread false information about them. This posed a dual threat to their digital and physical safety.
The report also documented over 80,000 Israeli incitement posts on social media platforms, including calls for genocide and justifications for violence and mass killings against Palestinians. The center recorded 340 complaints related to incitement through WhatsApp messages and SMS. Additionally, the center tracked the dissemination of 250 false and misleading pieces of information during this period, ranging from completely incorrect information to manipulated contexts aimed at justifying the violent targeting of Palestinian civilians.
Du
ring the year of genocide, Sada Social documented around 67 instances where Israel and its military forces used the “death squares” tactic as a means to evade responsibility for killing Palestinian civilians. They published maps dividing the Gaza Strip into numbered squares, ordering the residents of specific squares to evacuate under the threat of bombing and death. This tactic was later repeated in southern Lebanon.
Sada Social called on international institutions to take a firm stance against these discriminatory policies and to hold tech companies accountable for contributing to the amplification of the Israeli narrative by restricting Palestinian content.
The center also urged for an end to incitement campaigns that threaten the lives of both civilians and journalists alike.
Source: Palestine News and Information Agency – WAFA