AI for War: Big Tech Empowering Israel’s Crimes and Occupation by Marwa Fatafta

PLEASE TAKE ACTION RIGHT NOW AND SEND YOUR LETTER TO THE UN OFFICE OF THE SPECIAL ADVISER ON THE PREVENTION OF GENOCIDE AND THE INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL COURT PROSECUTOR.

Alarmingly, these AI-driven systems internalize the genocidal logic of their operators. They are trained to treat civilians as “terrorists,” building on the genocidal logic of Israeli officials who declared that “there are no innocent civilians in Gaza.” As part of efforts to automate lethal targeting, military commanders reportedly instructed soldiers to identify and feed as many targets as possible into the system. This effectively lowers the threshold for designating individuals as “Hamas militants,” casting a wide net of algorithmically flagged subjects. Despite its high error rate, the only criterion Israeli soldiers applied to Lavender’s kill list was the target’s gender, effectively rendering all Palestinian males—children and adults alike—legitimate targets. In practice, AI technology has enabled the Israeli regime’s genocidal logic to be executed with ruthless, machine-driven efficiency, reducing Palestinians, their families, and their homes to what the military chillingly refers to as “garbage targets.

Continue reading at https://al-shabaka.org/briefs/ai-for-war-big-tech-empowering-israels-crimes-and-occupation/

Dear Mark Zuckerberg and Leadership by Meta employees

PLEASE TAKE ACTION RIGHT NOW AND SEND YOUR LETTER TO THE UN OFFICE OF THE SPECIAL ADVISER ON THE PREVENTION OF GENOCIDE AND THE INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL COURT PROSECUTOR.

Meta leaders have posted numerous strong statements of support for our Israeli colleagues along with condemnation of the attack on Israel on October 7th that took the lives of ~1,200 civilians, both on internal and external platforms. Mark stated on his public Facebook – 
“The terrorist attacks by Hamas are pure evil. There is never any justification for carrying out acts of terrorism against innocent people. The widespread suffering that has resulted is devastating. My focus remains on the safety of our employees and their families in Israel and the region.” 

However, bias and inequity is painfully apparent when those same leaders do not similarly share support for our Palestinian colleagues and allies nor condemnation of the attacks on Palestine, which have now taken ~35,000 civilian lives and created a humanitarian crisis of displacement and starvation for ~2 million Palestinians. This has created a hostile and unsafe work environment for hundreds of our Palestinian, Arab, Muslim, anti-Zionist Jew, and anti-genocide colleagues at the company, who have felt consistently alienated and uncomfortable at work. Many have tried to articulate this through posts on Workplace only to be censored, rebuffed, and/or penalized. Feedback shared directly with leadership on Workplace Chat has been met with dismissiveness. Bias and inequity for the human rights and humanitarian crisis in Gaza is also apparent when compared to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, after which there was an outpouring of leadership support on all fronts, including additional resourcing and investment through various social impact initiatives. The lights in the Dublin office were even painted with the colors of the Ukraine flag. Leadership must do better to achieve true equity and inclusion.

Continue reading at https://www.metamates4ceasefire.com/