Almost everywhere. surveillance and ensorship come from far away.

Rest of World recently published a long post about how Israel silences Palestinians on social media. Without taking sides, this post highlights two of the general digital issues in that story:

• “Documentation and testimonies of the violence [Palestinians] faced from Israeli settlers are shut down by tech companies far from Palestine": Palestinians (and Israeli too!) have less control over their own voices than Facebook, Twitter, and TikTok, among others
• “For some Palestinians, just being able to post on social media under their real names is a risk too dangerous to take”

But these are both things that could happen in a flash everywhere else (and already do, in many places, from here to here and here). Whatever you think about the Middle East situation, or about online anonymity, please never forget this.

Image source: Wikipedia entry on Palestinian territories