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...

Saud al-Qahtani had been suspended permanently on Twitter before Elon Musk took over and rebranded it as X A key Saudi suspect in the murder of US-based journalist Jamal Khashoggi in 2018 has had his account reinstated on X, the social media company controlled by Elon Musk, after it was permanently suspended under the company’s previous owner. Saud al-Qahtani, a onetime key adviser to Mohammed bin Salman, had “direct involvement” in the murder of Khashoggi, according to a US intelligence assessment released by the Biden administration in 2021. Continue reading...

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...