With poor internet and electricity, Palestinians flock to co-working spaces and find hope despite Israel’s attacks It took more than 20 minutes and eight dropped WhatsApp calls to finally connect with Farida Adel in Gaza. Internet service is not reliable anywhere in the territory, including in the provisional co-working space in the city of Deir Al-Balah, where she and 50 or so others work remotely. An English teacher by training, Adel splits her time between a makeshift classroom in a tent, where she teaches for free, and a table in this cafe turned workspace where she translates documents from Arabic to English. Over the grainy video call, other freelancers who had been forcibly displaced to the central Gazan city could be seen working alongside her, all of them vying for the coveted internet connection. Continue reading...

Abdo Mohamed and Hossam Nasr organized event outside headquarters to reject company doing business in Israel Two Microsoft employees who were fired last week after organizing a vigil for Palestinians killed in Gaza say the company retaliated against them for their pro-Palestinian activism. The two, Abdo Mohamed, a researcher and data scientist, and Hossam Nasr, a software engineer, organized the event outside Microsoft headquarters in Redmond, Washington, on 24 October. They were fired later that evening. Continue reading...

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It’s all in the line of sight * See more of Fiona Katauskas’s cartoons here Continue reading...

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Meta rules that blanket ban on pro-Palestine slogan would hinder free speech Meta’s content moderation board has backed the company’s decision to allow Facebook posts containing the phrase “From the River to the Sea” after ruling that a blanket ban on the pro-Palestine slogan would hinder free speech. The Oversight Board reviewed three cases involving Facebook posts that featured “From the River to the Sea” and found they did not break Meta’s rules involving restrictions on hate speech and incitement, while an outright ban on the phrase would interfere with political speech in “unacceptable ways”. Continue reading...

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Meta has system for evaluating the effectiveness of its own moderation for Arabic language content but not Hebrew Meta is struggling with moderating content related to the Israel-Palestine war, particularly in Hebrew, despite recent changes to internal policies, new documents have revealed. Internal policy guidelines shared with the Guardian by a former Meta employee who worked on content moderation outline a multilayered process for moderating content related to the conflict. But the documents indicate Meta, which owns the platforms Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, does not have the same processes in place to gauge the accuracy of moderation of Hebrew content and Arabic content. Continue reading...

Meta says it would remove content ‘attacking “Zionists” when it is not explicitly about the political movement’ Meta Platforms said on Tuesday it would start taking down more posts that target “Zionists” when the term is used to refer to Jewish people and Israelis rather than representing supporters of the political movement. The Facebook and Instagram parent said in a blog post it would remove content “attacking ‘Zionists’ when it is not explicitly about the political movement” and uses antisemitic stereotypes or threatens harm through intimidation or violence directed against Jews or Israelis. Continue reading...