Technologies of Genocide: Suchitra Vijayan in Conversation with 7amleh

Suchitra Vijayan speaks with Eric Sype and Jalal Abukhater from 7amleh, The Arab Center for the Advancement of Social Media. They interrogate how Israel’s assault on Palestinians is enabled by global tech giants, weapon manufacturers, data brokers, and social media platforms. Building on UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese’s landmark report Forever-Occupation, Genocide, and Profit, they examine the “economy of genocide” in which Palestinian life is commodified, Palestinian data becomes raw material for AI-driven warfare, and digital platforms facilitate both propaganda and erasure. The discussion traces 7amleh’s evolution from monitoring online censorship to mapping the broader system of digital apartheid. Eric and Jalal detail how big tech companies, Google, Meta, Microsoft, Amazon, have deepened ties with the Israeli state, operating R&D centres that produce surveillance, predictive policing, and autonomous weapons systems, all battle-tested on Palestinians. They also document systematic shadow banning, takedowns, and narrative control on social media, particularly since October 2023, when Meta reversed prior human rights commitments and accelerated censorship of Palestinian voices. This silencing operates in tandem with physical violence: ICT infrastructure in Gaza is deliberately destroyed to impose communications blackouts. The episode closes by examining tech worker resistance and the structural parallels between today’s profit-driven annihilation and earlier stages of capitalism built on slavery and colonial extraction. Dismantling big tech’s role in genocide requires intersectional organising — uniting tech workers, human rights defenders, and users — to disrupt both the flow of data and the profits it generates. #technology #genocideingaza #meta #microsoft #google