JERUSALEM: Palestinian journalists have raised the alarm over what they describe as unjust suppression of their content on Facebook, a claim backed by rights groups but rejected by the social media giant.
On December 4, Palestine TV correspondent Christine Rinawi posted a video on her Facebook account in which Israeli security forces were seen shooting a Palestinian on the ground, killing him. He had just carried out a knife attack on an Israeli civilian.
Shortly after she posted her video, Rinawi, who has nearly 400,000 followers, noticed it had been removed from her account.
This was not her first experience with Facebook’s enforcement, and Rinawi said her account had already been restricted after she shared footage of a November attack in Jerusalem.
In both cases, Facebook said it intervened because the posts violated the platform’s standards.
A spokesperson for Facebook’s parent company Meta said its policies “were designed to give everyone a voice while keeping them safe on our apps.”
“We apply these policies to everyone equally, regardless of who is posting.”
Allegations of pro-Israeli bias at Facebook have simmered for years and were renewed in October when Human Rights Watch, a vocal Israel critic, said the platform had “suppressed content posted by Palestinians and their supporters speaking out about human rights issues in Israel and Palestine.”
Palestinian reporters have cited multiple incidents they describe as censorship.
One popular online news outlet, Maydan Quds News, may even have to fire reporters after its main Facebook page with 1.2 million followers was deleted, a source who requested anonymity told AFP.
The Meta spokesperson told AFP it has “a dedicated team, which includes Arabic and Hebrew speakers, who are focused on keeping our community safe by making sure we’re removing harmful content.”
It also strives to address “any enforcement errors as quickly as possible so people can keep sharing what matters to them.”
In the midst of a bout of fighting in May between Israel and armed factions in the Gaza Strip — the worst in years — Facebook had acknowledged widescale deletion of Palestinian posts, ascribing it to a technical bug that it sought to fix.
According to Palestinian social media monitoring center Sada Social, 600 Palestinian accounts or pro-Palestinian Facebook posts were restricted or deleted in 2021, a record. The center helped launch a social media campaign called “Facebook Censors Jerusalem.”
Rama Youssef, a Jerusalem-based journalist who volunteered for the campaign, said Facebook hews to an Israeli point of view and has “double standards.”
The Arab Center Washington DC think-tank said the Israeli government also pushes to censor “tens of thousands of posts and accounts” that support a Palestinian point of view.
Meta did not answer AFP questions about requests from the Israeli government.
But the company denied accusations of bias, saying its community standards prohibit violence, terrorism, hate and large-scale criminal activity, as well as posts supporting those subjects.
Israeli officials have also accused various social media platforms, including Facebook, of failing to curb anti-Semitism.
In February, then-diaspora affairs minister Omer Yankelevich presented Facebook, Google, TikTok and Twitter with proposals to beef up the fight against anti-Semitism, saying it was “running rampant” online.
Media expert Iyad Al-Rifai of Sada Social said he regularly meets with Facebook representatives to ask for more transparency.
He said the site appeared to target the word “shahid,” Arabic for martyr, which Palestinians frequently use to describe people killed by Israeli forces, including those who carried out attacks.
Rifai told AFP that Facebook insisted it is bound by American standards which consider “attackers to be terrorists,” not martyrs to a political cause.
But he said censoring the term wholesale ignored the wider context of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Meta did not respond to a question about its policies regarding the use of the word “shahid.”
But it said it reviews posts according to its own policies, as well as “local laws and international human rights standards.”
Rifai said he was concerned that deleting accounts might discourage Palestinians from “engaging with pivotal issues” for fear of losing “their digital history and presence.”
He said he obtained from Facebook “promises to improve the working mechanisms of the algorithms so as to differentiate between journalistic content and ordinary content,” but he feared they offered “temporary rather than radical solutions.”
Palestinians raise alarm over Facebook content ‘suppression’
https://arab.news/6r3m8
Palestinians raise alarm over Facebook content ‘suppression’
- Rinawi said her account had already been restricted after she shared footage of a November attack in Jerusalem
- Facebook said it intervened because the posts violated the platform's standards
Yemen’s Houthis say their missile hit Andromeda Star oil ship in Red Sea
- Israel has killed more than 34,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry
- The Houthis on Friday said they downed an American MQ-9 drone in airspace of Yemen’s Saada province
CAIRO/LOS ANGELES: Yemen’s Houthis said on Saturday their missiles hit the Andromeda Star oil tanker in the Red Sea, as they continue attacking commercial ships in the area in a show of support for Palestinians fighting Israel in the Gaza war.
The ship’s master reported damage to the vessel, British maritime security firm Ambrey said.
Houthi spokesman Yahya Sarea said the Panama-flagged ship was British owned, but shipping data shows it was recently sold, according to LSEG data and Ambrey.
Its current owner is Seychelles-registered. The tanker is engaged in Russia-linked trade. It was en route from Primorsk, Russia, to Vadinar, India, Ambrey said.
Iran-aligned Houthi militants have launched repeated drone and missile strikes in the Red Sea, Bab Al-Mandab Strait and Gulf of Aden since November, forcing shippers to re-route cargo to longer and more expensive journeys around southern Africa and stoking fears the Israel-Hamas war could spread and destabilize the Middle East.
The attack on the Andromeda Star comes after a brief pause in the Houthis’ campaign that targets ships with ties to Israel, the United States and Britain.
The USS Dwight D. Eisenhower aircraft carrier sailed out of the Red Sea via the Suez Canal on Friday after assisting a US-led coalition to protect commercial shipping.
The Houthis on Friday said they downed an American MQ-9 drone in airspace of Yemen’s Saada province.
China to host Hamas, Fatah for Palestinian unity talks
- Israel has killed more than 34,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry
BEIJING/CAIRO: China will host Palestinian unity talks between Islamist militant group Hamas and its rivals Fatah, the two groups and a Beijing-based diplomat said on Friday, a notable Chinese foray into Palestinian diplomacy amid the war in the Gaza Strip.
Hamas, which controls Gaza, is the group whose fighters stormed into Israeli towns on Oct. 7, killing 1,200 people and capturing 253 hostages. Israel has sworn to annihilate Hamas in an onslaught that has killed more than 34,000 Palestinians.
Fatah is the movement of Mahmoud Abbas, president of the Western-backed Palestinian Authority, which exercises limited self-rule in the Israeli occupied West Bank.
The two rival Palestinian factions have failed to heal their political disputes since Hamas fighters expelled Fatah from Gaza in a short war in 2007. Washington is wary of moves to reconcile the two groups, as it supports the PA but has banned Hamas as terrorists.
A Fatah official told Reuters a delegation, led by the group’s senior official Azzam Al-Ahmed, had left for China. A Hamas official said the faction’s team for the talks, led by senior Hamas official Moussa Abu Marzouk, would be flying there later on Friday.
“We support strengthening the authority of the Palestinian National Authority, and support all Palestinian factions in achieving reconciliation and increasing solidarity through dialogue and consultation,” said Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin at a regular briefing on Friday, without confirming the meeting.
The visit will be the first time a Hamas delegation is publicly known to have gone to China since the start of the war in Gaza. A Chinese diplomat, Wang Kejian, met Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh in Qatar last month, according to the Chinese foreign ministry.
The Beijing-based diplomat, who had been briefed on the matter, said the talks aimed to support efforts to reconcile the two Palestinian rival groups.
China has lately demonstrated growing diplomatic influence in the Middle East, where it enjoys strong ties with Arab nations and Iran. Last year, Beijing brokered a breakthrough peace deal between longstanding regional foes Saudi Arabia and Iran.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said he discussed with Chinese President Xi Jinping and other officials in Beijing on Friday how China can play a constructive role in global crises, including the Middle East.
Chinese officials have ramped up advocacy for the Palestinians in international forums in recent months, calling for a larger-scale Israeli-Palestinian peace conference and a specific timetable to implement a two-state solution.
In February, Beijing urged the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to give its opinion on the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian Territories, which it said was illegal.
More recently, China has been pushing for Palestine to join the United Nations, which Beijing’s top diplomat Wang Yi said last week would “rectify a prolonged historical injustice.” (Reporting by Nidal Al-Mughrabi and Laurie Chen in Beijing Additional reporting by Ali Sawafta in Ramallah Writing by Nidal Al-Mughrabi Editing by Peter Graff)
Somalia detains US-trained commandos over theft of rations
- The US agreed in 2017 to help train and equip the 3,000-strong Danab to act as a quick-reaction strike force against Al-Shabab
MOGADISHU: Somalia’s government said it had suspended and detained several members of an elite, US-trained commando unit for stealing rations donated by the US, adding that it was taking over responsibility for provisioning the force.
The Danab unit has been a key pillar of US-backed efforts to combat the Al-Qaeda-linked militant group Al-Shabab. The US agreed in February to spend more than $100 million to build up to five military bases for Danab.
Somalia’s Defense Ministry said in a statement that it had notified international partners of the theft and would share the outcome of its investigation.
A US official said in a statement to Reuters that Washington takes all corruption accusations seriously.
“We look forward to engaging with the Danab on creating the necessary safeguards and accountability measures to prevent future incidents that could affect future assistance,” the official said, without directly addressing whether any US support had already been suspended.
The US agreed in 2017 to help train and equip the 3,000-strong Danab to act as a quick-reaction strike force against Al-Shabab.
The group has been waging an insurgency against the central government since 2006.
Danab has been heavily involved in a military offensive by the Somali military and allied clan militias since 2022 that initially succeeded in wresting swaths of territory from Al-Shabab in central Somalia.
However, the campaign has lost momentum, with the government-allied forces struggling to hold rural areas and Al-Shabab continuing to stage large-scale attacks, including in the capital Mogadishu.
Washington suspended some defense assistance to Somalia in 2017 after the military could not account for food and fuel.
The US also conducts frequent drone strikes targeting Al-Shabab militants.
Syrian woman is jailed for life over Istanbul killer blast; over 20 others also get prison sentences
Syrian woman is jailed for life over Istanbul killer blast; over 20 others also get prison sentences
- Ahlam Albashir was given a total of seven life sentences by a Turkish court for carrying out the attack in Istiklal Avenue on Nov. 13, 2022
- Twenty others were given prison sentences ranging from four years to life
JEDDAH: A Syrian woman who planted a bomb that killed six people in Istanbul’s main shopping street 18 months ago was jailed for life on Friday.
Ahlam Albashir was given a total of seven life sentences by a Turkish court for carrying out the attack in Istiklal Avenue on Nov. 13, 2022. Six Turkish citizens, two members each from three families, died in the blast in the busy street packed with shoppers and tourists. About 100 people were injured.
More than 30 other people were accused in connection with the explosion. Four were released from prison on Friday, and a further 10 were ordered to be tried separately in their absence because they could not be found.
Twenty others were given prison sentences ranging from four years to life. Of those, six received aggravated life imprisonment for murder and “disrupting the unity and integrity of the state.”
Turkiye blamed Kurdish militants for the explosion, and said the order for the attack was given in Kobani in northern Syria, where Turkish forces have conducted operations against the Syrian Kurdish YPG militia in recent years.
The YPG and the outlawed PKK Kurdish separatist group, which has fought a decades-old insurgency against the Turkish state, denied involvement in the attack. No group admitted it.
Istanbul has been attacked in the past by Kurdish, Islamist and leftist militants. A wave of bombings and other attacks began nationwide when a ceasefire between Ankara and the PKK broke down in mid-2015.
More than 40,000 people have been killed in the PKK’s conflict with Turkiye since the militant group took up arms in 1984. It is considered a terrorist organisation by Turkiye, the EU and the US.
Where We Are Going Today: ‘TNDR’ fried chicken in Jeddah
- The menu at TNDR is simple, focusing on what they do best: tender chicken fingers served with a variety of sauces, sodas, coleslaw salad, and, of course, fries
TNDR, the latest addition to Jeddah’s fast-food scene, offers mouthwatering tender fried chicken. With two drive-through locations in Rawdah and Al-Hamadaniah, TNDR promises a quick and satisfying dining experience.
The menu at TNDR is simple, focusing on what they do best: tender chicken fingers served with a variety of sauces, sodas, coleslaw salad, and, of course, fries. What sets TNDR apart is using locally sourced ingredients to create flavorful sandwiches and wraps.
One standout item on the menu is the TNDR Wrap, featuring four pieces of perfectly fried chicken, warm tortilla wrap with gooey melted cheddar cheese, crisp lettuce and garlic sauce, and fries, available in both regular and spicy.
I opted for the spicy one, the chicken was indeed very tender and crunchy, the wrap size was fair for a dinner meal, whilst what made every bite count was the warm cheddar sauce.
The second main is the TNDR Combo, a sandwich that features tender fried chicken in a fluffy bun, complemented by creamy garlic sauce, fresh lettuce, rich cheddar cheese sauce, and fries.
The logo of the brand is funky and imitates a graphic of a cool chicken standing by the order window wearing shoes. This playful design sets the tone for the fun and inviting atmosphere at TNDR.
For more information and updates, be sure to check out @tndr.sa on Instagram.
