RAMALLAH, Monday, January 31, 2022 (WAFA) - Sada Social, a local social media watch group, said it documented 1593 violations against Palestinian content in 2021, 44 percent of which were against pages for media, journalists, and activists.

It said in its annual report that monitors social media violations of Palestinian content that the violations increased by 32.7 percent over last year.

“2021 was a space in which indications of violation of users' digital rights have been escalated and tendencies to impose coercive powers on people's practices in this space increased,” it said in its report. “This goes beyond violating digital rights to violating basic human rights and turns cyberspace into a space full of threats.”

The center indicated that “muting the Palestinian voice, deleting pages that document the crimes of the (Israeli) occupation and the memory of the Palestinians, and threatening users and content creators regarding Palestine, were accompanied by silence on the crimes of incitement and hatred and threats practiced by the occupation through the space of these platforms during this year. Despite the recognition of many representatives of Social media sites of this bias and promises to review and reform policies, what actually happened is more persistence in violations, bias and punitive policies against Palestinian content.”

Sada Social said Facebook had the highest number of violations against Palestinian content with 853 violations, followed by Twitter with 445 violations, and Instagram with 174 violations. TikTok had 72vilations, WhatsApp 22, YouTube 16, and Skype 2.

M.K.