Since 2021, thousands of Amazon and Google tech workers have been organising against Project Nimbus, Google and Amazon’s shared USD$1.2 billion contract with the Israeli government and military. Since then, there has been no response from management or executive. Their organising efforts have accelerated since 7 October 2023, with the ongoing genocide on Gaza and occupied Palestinian territories by the Israeli state.
Continue reading “Tech workers demand Google and Amazon to stop their complicity in Israel’s genocide against the Palestinian people”Tech For Palestine
A loose coalition of 4,000+ founders, engineers, product marketers, community builders, investors, and other tech folks working towards Palestinian freedom. We aim to end the dehumanisation of Palestinians within the tech community, and to bring voice to those who speak up.
From Tech For Palestine
On “The Palestine Laboratory”
A large part of Israel’s economy and global influence are dependent on its military-technology complex that not only fuels the ongoing genocide in Gaza but is also exported to facilitate oppression around the world. In this thorough 2023 book, journalist Anthony Loewenstein makes explicit how Israel’s military industrial complex profits exorbitantly from exporting technologies “battle-tested” on occupied Gaza and the West-Bank.
Continue reading “On “The Palestine Laboratory””“Mowing the lawn”: The weaponisation of water and technology in Palestine
In the most recent issue of Logic(s) Magazine, Edward Ongweso Jr. writes about Israel’s strategy towards Gaza called “mowing the lawn”: bursts of horrifying violence – a collective punishment of Palestinian people – followed by “calmer” periods where survivors are left to bury the dead, and rebuild their infrastructure while Israel continues to deepen its occupation.
Continue reading ““Mowing the lawn”: The weaponisation of water and technology in Palestine”Racist Technology in Action: Meta systemically censors and silences Palestinian content globally
The censorship and silencing of Palestinian voices, and voices of those who support Palestine, is not new. However, since the escalation of Israel’s violence on the Gaza strip since 7 October 2023, the scale of censorship has significantly heightened, particular on social media platforms such as Instagram and Facebook. In December 2023, Human Rights Watch (HRW) released a 51-page report*, stating that Meta has engaged in systematic and global censorship of content related to Palestine since October 7th.
Continue reading “Racist Technology in Action: Meta systemically censors and silences Palestinian content globally”Automating apartheid in the Occupied Palestinian Territories
In this interview, Matt Mahmoudi explains the Amnesty report titled Automating Apartheid, which he contributed to. The report exposes how the Israeli authorities extensively use surveillance tools, facial recognition technologies, and networks of CCTV cameras to support, intensify and entrench their continued domination and oppression of Palestinians in the Occupied Territories (OPT), Hebron and East Jerusalem. Facial recognition software is used by Israeli authorities to consolidate existing practices of discriminatory policing and segregation, violating Palestinians’ basic rights.
Continue reading “Automating apartheid in the Occupied Palestinian Territories”Racist Technology in Action: Generative/ing AI Bias
By now we know that generative image AI reproduces and amplifies sexism, racism, and other social systems of oppression. The latest example is of AI-generated stickers in WhatsApp that systematically depict Palestinian men and boys with rifles and guns.
Continue reading “Racist Technology in Action: Generative/ing AI Bias”WhatsApp’s AI shows gun-wielding children when prompted with ‘Palestine’
By contrast, prompts for ‘Israeli’ do not generate images of people wielding guns, even in response to a prompt for ‘Israel army’.
By Johana Bhuiyan for The Guardian on November 3, 2023
Standing in solidarity with the Palestinian people
We at the Racism and Technology Center stand in solidarity with the Palestinian people. We condemn the violence enacted against the innocent people in Palestine and Israel, and mourn alongside all who are dead, injured and still missing. Palestinian communities are being subjected to unlawful collective punishment in Gaza and the West Bank, including the ongoing bombings and the blockade of water, food and energy. We call for an end to the blockade and an immediate ceasefire.
Continue reading “Standing in solidarity with the Palestinian people”Meta’s clampdown on Palestine speech is far from ‘unintentional’
A report validated Palestinian experiences of social media censorship in May 2021, but missed how those policies are biased by design.
By Marwa Fatafta for +972 Magazine on October 9, 2022