Semua Gambar Berita Video Belanja Maps Sosial Media Files Science
Sekitar 20 hasil (2.31 detik)
Komunitas feddit.de

The EU’s Digital Services Act goes into effect today: here’s what that means

Alright, trying an ELI5 here. Big internet platforms like YouTube, Instagram etc. will get new rules in the EU Less relevant/targeted ads for minors Ads are not allowed to target you based on your gender, ethnicity etc. More transparency and more control over which content will get shown to you Big internet companies can get sued for the content users upload They will implement reporting and delting tools to not get sued Maybe we’ll see some upload filters Instagram will give you a chronological feed TikTok will give you some trending stuff within your region EU only

Komunitas lemm.ee

Lemmy has taught me that Firefox is the way

I hear this all the time. I have this conversation on the regular. Them: “Oh you think Tik Tok is spyware?” Me: “yes” Them: “I’ll have you know so is Google, Apple, Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, Microsoft, and all the big American companies too” Me: “Yeah, that’s why I don’t use them” Them: gasp “you’re just paranoid bro are you a drug dealer or something?” Me: “no, I just like my privacy. You probably wouldn’t like it if some guy was following you keeping tabs about everything you do either.” Them: “well I’ve got nothing to hide” Me: “maybe the next person in power might see your current and past beliefs illegal”

Komunitas sopuli.xyz

It's like interpreting a different language...

Explanation for anyone who needs it: “My Shayla” is a meme on tiktok derived from a video of actor Tyrese Gibson crying on an Instagram Live about losing custody of his daughter Shayla. It is generally used as a sound for people missing a person, a space or time (eg. your childhood), or just thinking about their pets while they’re at work. In this case, Tiktok is replacing Shayla for the OP. Many US users of Tiktok post-ban have commented that their algorithm is less personalized and more geared towards outrage content. As such, the app no longer has the original vibes, and is now suspected as another delivery method of propaganda for the Trump administration. They are now seeking alternatives. To express their disappointment, another user is saying they have had a “no bones day” since the return of the app. This refers to a famous pug named Noodle on Tiktok who’s owner posted videos of them lifting Noodle up and seeing if Noodle will stand up on their own or fall over. If Noodles stood up, it was a high energy therefore “bones” day, and if Noodles fell over, it was a low energy “no bones day”. The final poster makes a humourous observation that without Tiktok, they would not have understood the previous conversation, and wishes “old Tiktok” to rest in peace. Some additional nice commentary: Older observers have chimed into this conversation reminiscing about their own “lost” or enshittified websites and platforms (stumbleupon, addictinggames/other flash sites, Homestarrunner, Vine, MSN Messenger, MySpace, Encarta, Napsters, Last. fm, hobby forums, etc.) They have tried to assure younger people, who socialize more online than any other generation, that there will be other options and opportunities to gather in communities again (to mixed results).

Komunitas lemmy.ml

How Hasbara speaks in Indonesia – Part I: The Evangelical Narrative: A Cracked Mirror of the West.

dipos-lintas dari: https://news.abolish.capital/post/49510 Usman Harun The Republic of Indonesia is made up of thousands of Islands, speaking hundreds of languages, with its people numbering in the hundreds of millions. Indonesia’s large population, its unique archipelagic landscape, and the sheer diversity of its people may become its strength, as it appears that a single narrative is insufficient to convince the population to agree with the Israeli Occupation’s genocidal narrative. Hasbara is a Hebrew word translated variously as “explanation,” “interpretation,” and “propaganda.” In essence, it is propaganda intended to wash out the reputation of the Zionist entity, and especially their armed forces, the so-called “Israel Defense Forces”. One may think that in a Muslim-majority country with rising digital literacy levels and high internet penetration rates, such as Indonesia, it would appear unlikely for Zionist propaganda to penetrate the masses. However, the reality is, as always, more nuanced and complex to say the least. This series of articles will explore the various ways Zionist propaganda tries to convince various demographics of Indonesia to bend to its will. Indonesia is known to most of the world as having one of the largest populations of Muslims worldwide. However, it is less well known that it also has among the highest populations of evangelicals in Southeast Asia. Christians make up roughly 10-11% of the Indonesian population, with a high proportion being Protestant. Roughly 15 million people in Indonesia are estimated to belong to the various evangelical churches, with their population mostly centered on several localized ethnicities through ethnic churches with various networks. To the evangelicals, the message of Hasbara is not so far different from what is fed to Western Christians. They claim that the Israeli Occupation is the same as the one in the Bible, and that the land is promised to the Jews by divine will. Zionist evangelicals often have their ideas spread through so-called religious pilgrimages to the occupied territories, which are unfortunately facilitated widely in the tourism industry of Indonesia in forms such as “Holy Land tours”. Zionist churches in Indonesia often have direct ties with their counterparts in the United States. Political and economic lobby groups in the United States likewise often have their ties stemming from this very same connection. Just as in the United States, Evangelicals outnumber Jews, both in the general population and when comparing the proportion of Evangelical and Jewish Zionists. Among the famous evangelicals in support of Zionism is Monique Rijkers, an individual who has a long history of Zionist activism, who, not too long ago, attended the so-called Christian Media Summit in Jerusalem, hosted by the Israeli Occupation government and the US-based “International Fellowship of Christians and Jews”. Monique Rijkers had proposed relocating Palestinians from Gaza to Indonesia to form a 35th province named “Gaza”, which was ironically somewhat entertained by the Indonesian government in the form of a refugee island in the Riau Islands province, in accordance with the same initiative with Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu. The narrative brought by evangelicals often extends to the ethnic sphere. Aside from believing that the Jews were a so-called “chosen people”, Monique Rijkers also claims that the Batak people of Sumatra are “the same” as the Israelites in the mentality of migrating and adapting. There is also this increasingly unhinged conspiracy theory claiming that the Batak people are one of the lost tribes of Israel, similar to the case of the so-called Hebrew Israelites in the United States. One stark difference, however, is that unlike in the case of the Hebrew Israelites, the Batak people, who claim they are “Israeli” descendants, vehemently support the so-called “State of Israel.” Monique Rijkers Batak Zionists such as Flemming Pangabean have also lived in occupied Palestine and promoted Indonesian work and travel to the occupied territories. The Arava International Center of Agriculture Training in Negevhas actively recruited people from the Tapanuli, Siantar, Dairi, Simalungun, Karo, Tobasa, Samosir, and Sidikalang regionsto enroll in their university, despite a lack of diplomatic recognition. North Sulawesi, the place where Indonesia’s Jewish community is known to come from, is also infested by some of Indonesia’s most Zionist evangelicals. The Gereja Masihi Injili di Minahasa (GMIM) church openly flies the Israeli flag in their marches. In Manado, the so-called saying “blessed are those who bless Israel, and cursed are those who curse Israel” remains popular. This is to the extent that we see people having funerals being draped in Israeli Occupation flags. The Occupation flag, though illegal to fly under ministerial regulation, is often displayed alongside the Indonesian and US flags in the province. In 2023, a peaceful Palestinian rally was violently attacked by Zionist mobs in Bitung, North Sulawesi. The resulting clashes caused the death of one individual and serious injuries to another. Unsurprisingly, the clashes were very sectarian, with muslims on the pro-Palestinian side and evangelicals on the Zionist side. It was this civil conflict that caused the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to reiterate its ban on the Israeli Occupation’s flag. In North Sulawesi, Zionist sentiment is often also tied with pro-Americanism and Minahasa separatist sentiment. In Papua, the entire provincial government had declared support for Israeli recognition and diplomatic ties. Henry Dosinaen, past regional secretary for Papua, believed that the Israeli Occupation is a religiously tolerant multicultural state, and wishes to spread this tolerance of the Zionist entity to Indonesia. In 2022, the International University of Papua claimed that they are ready to cooperate with Ariel University, a university located in an illegal Zionist settlement in the West Bank of Palestine. This is despite the lack of diplomatic relations between Indonesia and the Zionist entity, and despite Ariel University being subject to various academic boycotts due to its blatant illegal location and its normalization of Zionist settlement. Samuel Tabuni, founder of the International University of Papua, was said to be inspired by Agus Suherman, an Indonesian businessman who had previously sent Indonesian agricultural students to study in the Arava International Center of Agriculture Training (AICAT) in Negev. Tabuni had already signed a memorandum with Ariel University’s international relations head, without any comment from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. In 2025, a Papuan contestant to the Miss Indonesia pageant, Merince Kogoya, was disqualified due to openly having pro-Occupation views and openly waving the Israeli flag. Papuan and Manadonese netizens quickly defended Merince, and Merince herself was very defensive on the topic. Her religious movement “Sion kids” defended her flag raising as being religious, as they are part of a Protestant sect called “Messianic Judaism”, which, although it consists mainly of Jewish people who accept Jesus (Prophet Isa [as]) as messiah, still openly collaborates and defends the Zionist entity “State of Israel”. In 2023, the Papuan regional government funded 51 people, including state employees, for a “pilgrimage to Israel”. In 2024, the number of “pilgrims” funded by the state budget increased to 83. The tide of Zionism within the Indonesian evangelical community is not entirely unopposed, however. There are indeed many Protestants in Indonesia who openly reject Zionism and accept the stance of the Republic of Indonesia, which is not to recognize the so-called “State of Israel”, and thus to oppose conflating the modern Zionist entity with the biblical subject. The Indonesian Bethel Church (GBI) mentions in detail about the “relations of the church and Israel” in article 10 of their book of statements, that theologically, the “Israeli” people are no longer “the chosen people”, as they believe God has now chosen the church. The Bethel Church also states that the modern “State of Israel” has no special relation with the Church and sees the matter in the framework of international relations rather than religion. They have also denied that Holy Land pilgrimages are religious. The Communion of Churches in Indonesia (PGI) has, in the past, denied the legitimacy of Trump’s move to recognize Jerusalem (Al Quds) back in 2017 as the capital of the “State of Israel”. Although the PGI regrettably mentions the Zionist occupation as an “Israel-Hamas conflict” in their 2023 statement, they have also condemned the US-Israeli attack on Iran in 2026. The socialization of the reality of the occupation, the fate of the Palestinian Christians, and the factual difference between the so-called “State of Israel” and the biblical subject, as also believed by many Jews, is something that is impeccably needed in the theological discourse of the Indonesian church. Truth and factual clarity regarding Palestine and the plight of Palestinian Christians are desperately needed to be understood, as opposed to myths and conspiracies which Zionists rely on to spread their message of hate and occupation to Indonesian Christians. Seeing the severity of bigoted views of evangelical Zionists in Indonesia, dialogue between pro-Palestinian activists in Indonesia from various backgrounds with Indonesian Christians and evangelicals should be emphasized. A son of a famous Pastor known for having more Zionist-leaning stances made news when he broke ranks and decided to speak with the Palestinian ambassador, immediately asking what to do to help Palestine. Theological critique of Zionism is also desperately needed from a Christian perspective and should be added to the Indonesian mainstream discourse. Decisions from churches such as PGI and GBI should be made more known, and so should the various Christian movements in the world criticizing Zionism, such as the pro-Palestinian stances of some church clergy from the Dutch PKN Church, be shared more in the discourse. The Zionist occupation must stop being conflated with becoming a religious conflict between Islam and Christianity. If Indonesian national media understood enough about the horrible crimes of Zionism, then the least they can do is to de-platform the Zionists and put them out of national TV and national media. As the hero Ghassan Kanafani said, there is no use in talking with those who put their knife to your neck. It would also be beneficial to track the influence of foreign Zionist churches and lobbies in Indonesia and to advocate for their boycott, both through organic mass efforts and political lobbying. Much is to be done within the evangelical Christian community to counter the tide of Zionist heresy among its believers, starting small, however little, would still have potential to bring a glimmer of light in the dark sky. Usman Harun is a lifelong Indonesian patriot, a born and practicing Muslim but “with his entire nation in mind.” From Vox Ummah via This RSS Feed.

Komunitas lemmy.world

TikTok will not be sold, Chinese parent ByteDance tells US

Here’s Bernie Sanders from a year ago talking about how a handful of companies control the news people see, read, and hear. TL:DR - He makes the argument that it’s not fake news, that journalists are usually hard-working and honest. He says the problem is the limitation of allowed discussion - what topics make it to the consumer. He says for instance that he’s never asked about wealth and income inequality. I believe TikTok is being banned because as it stands now it brings topics outside the limits of allowed discussion to a lot of eyes in ways US government/companies haven’t proven able to control. If the issues justifying a potential ban were truly data security or mental health as some argue (not without merit mind you), then the legislation to address those issues would look a lot different and include companies like Meta, Google, Instagram, etc. Those are valid concerns but the new measure is clearly not designed around them. Finally, we’ve seen how Trump can tie up the courts for months on end even after all his self-snitching. Thus I very much doubt we’ll see any actual action in the 9 months + 3 months grace period laid out for the resolution of the TikTok matter. There are too many constitutional and business law challenges in my (admittedly layman’s) reading of expert opinion.

Komunitas lemmy.ml

How Hasbara speaks in Indonesia – Part I: The Evangelical Narrative: A Cracked Mirror of the West.

dipos-lintas dari: https://news.abolish.capital/post/49510 Usman Harun The Republic of Indonesia is made up of thousands of Islands, speaking hundreds of languages, with its people numbering in the hundreds of millions. Indonesia’s large population, its unique archipelagic landscape, and the sheer diversity of its people may become its strength, as it appears that a single narrative is insufficient to convince the population to agree with the Israeli Occupation’s genocidal narrative. Hasbara is a Hebrew word translated variously as “explanation,” “interpretation,” and “propaganda.” In essence, it is propaganda intended to wash out the reputation of the Zionist entity, and especially their armed forces, the so-called “Israel Defense Forces”. One may think that in a Muslim-majority country with rising digital literacy levels and high internet penetration rates, such as Indonesia, it would appear unlikely for Zionist propaganda to penetrate the masses. However, the reality is, as always, more nuanced and complex to say the least. This series of articles will explore the various ways Zionist propaganda tries to convince various demographics of Indonesia to bend to its will. Indonesia is known to most of the world as having one of the largest populations of Muslims worldwide. However, it is less well known that it also has among the highest populations of evangelicals in Southeast Asia. Christians make up roughly 10-11% of the Indonesian population, with a high proportion being Protestant. Roughly 15 million people in Indonesia are estimated to belong to the various evangelical churches, with their population mostly centered on several localized ethnicities through ethnic churches with various networks. To the evangelicals, the message of Hasbara is not so far different from what is fed to Western Christians. They claim that the Israeli Occupation is the same as the one in the Bible, and that the land is promised to the Jews by divine will. Zionist evangelicals often have their ideas spread through so-called religious pilgrimages to the occupied territories, which are unfortunately facilitated widely in the tourism industry of Indonesia in forms such as “Holy Land tours”. Zionist churches in Indonesia often have direct ties with their counterparts in the United States. Political and economic lobby groups in the United States likewise often have their ties stemming from this very same connection. Just as in the United States, Evangelicals outnumber Jews, both in the general population and when comparing the proportion of Evangelical and Jewish Zionists. Among the famous evangelicals in support of Zionism is Monique Rijkers, an individual who has a long history of Zionist activism, who, not too long ago, attended the so-called Christian Media Summit in Jerusalem, hosted by the Israeli Occupation government and the US-based “International Fellowship of Christians and Jews”. Monique Rijkers had proposed relocating Palestinians from Gaza to Indonesia to form a 35th province named “Gaza”, which was ironically somewhat entertained by the Indonesian government in the form of a refugee island in the Riau Islands province, in accordance with the same initiative with Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu. The narrative brought by evangelicals often extends to the ethnic sphere. Aside from believing that the Jews were a so-called “chosen people”, Monique Rijkers also claims that the Batak people of Sumatra are “the same” as the Israelites in the mentality of migrating and adapting. There is also this increasingly unhinged conspiracy theory claiming that the Batak people are one of the lost tribes of Israel, similar to the case of the so-called Hebrew Israelites in the United States. One stark difference, however, is that unlike in the case of the Hebrew Israelites, the Batak people, who claim they are “Israeli” descendants, vehemently support the so-called “State of Israel.” Monique Rijkers Batak Zionists such as Flemming Pangabean have also lived in occupied Palestine and promoted Indonesian work and travel to the occupied territories. The Arava International Center of Agriculture Training in Negevhas actively recruited people from the Tapanuli, Siantar, Dairi, Simalungun, Karo, Tobasa, Samosir, and Sidikalang regionsto enroll in their university, despite a lack of diplomatic recognition. North Sulawesi, the place where Indonesia’s Jewish community is known to come from, is also infested by some of Indonesia’s most Zionist evangelicals. The Gereja Masihi Injili di Minahasa (GMIM) church openly flies the Israeli flag in their marches. In Manado, the so-called saying “blessed are those who bless Israel, and cursed are those who curse Israel” remains popular. This is to the extent that we see people having funerals being draped in Israeli Occupation flags. The Occupation flag, though illegal to fly under ministerial regulation, is often displayed alongside the Indonesian and US flags in the province. In 2023, a peaceful Palestinian rally was violently attacked by Zionist mobs in Bitung, North Sulawesi. The resulting clashes caused the death of one individual and serious injuries to another. Unsurprisingly, the clashes were very sectarian, with muslims on the pro-Palestinian side and evangelicals on the Zionist side. It was this civil conflict that caused the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to reiterate its ban on the Israeli Occupation’s flag. In North Sulawesi, Zionist sentiment is often also tied with pro-Americanism and Minahasa separatist sentiment. In Papua, the entire provincial government had declared support for Israeli recognition and diplomatic ties. Henry Dosinaen, past regional secretary for Papua, believed that the Israeli Occupation is a religiously tolerant multicultural state, and wishes to spread this tolerance of the Zionist entity to Indonesia. In 2022, the International University of Papua claimed that they are ready to cooperate with Ariel University, a university located in an illegal Zionist settlement in the West Bank of Palestine. This is despite the lack of diplomatic relations between Indonesia and the Zionist entity, and despite Ariel University being subject to various academic boycotts due to its blatant illegal location and its normalization of Zionist settlement. Samuel Tabuni, founder of the International University of Papua, was said to be inspired by Agus Suherman, an Indonesian businessman who had previously sent Indonesian agricultural students to study in the Arava International Center of Agriculture Training (AICAT) in Negev. Tabuni had already signed a memorandum with Ariel University’s international relations head, without any comment from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. In 2025, a Papuan contestant to the Miss Indonesia pageant, Merince Kogoya, was disqualified due to openly having pro-Occupation views and openly waving the Israeli flag. Papuan and Manadonese netizens quickly defended Merince, and Merince herself was very defensive on the topic. Her religious movement “Sion kids” defended her flag raising as being religious, as they are part of a Protestant sect called “Messianic Judaism”, which, although it consists mainly of Jewish people who accept Jesus (Prophet Isa [as]) as messiah, still openly collaborates and defends the Zionist entity “State of Israel”. In 2023, the Papuan regional government funded 51 people, including state employees, for a “pilgrimage to Israel”. In 2024, the number of “pilgrims” funded by the state budget increased to 83. The tide of Zionism within the Indonesian evangelical community is not entirely unopposed, however. There are indeed many Protestants in Indonesia who openly reject Zionism and accept the stance of the Republic of Indonesia, which is not to recognize the so-called “State of Israel”, and thus to oppose conflating the modern Zionist entity with the biblical subject. The Indonesian Bethel Church (GBI) mentions in detail about the “relations of the church and Israel” in article 10 of their book of statements, that theologically, the “Israeli” people are no longer “the chosen people”, as they believe God has now chosen the church. The Bethel Church also states that the modern “State of Israel” has no special relation with the Church and sees the matter in the framework of international relations rather than religion. They have also denied that Holy Land pilgrimages are religious. The Communion of Churches in Indonesia (PGI) has, in the past, denied the legitimacy of Trump’s move to recognize Jerusalem (Al Quds) back in 2017 as the capital of the “State of Israel”. Although the PGI regrettably mentions the Zionist occupation as an “Israel-Hamas conflict” in their 2023 statement, they have also condemned the US-Israeli attack on Iran in 2026. The socialization of the reality of the occupation, the fate of the Palestinian Christians, and the factual difference between the so-called “State of Israel” and the biblical subject, as also believed by many Jews, is something that is impeccably needed in the theological discourse of the Indonesian church. Truth and factual clarity regarding Palestine and the plight of Palestinian Christians are desperately needed to be understood, as opposed to myths and conspiracies which Zionists rely on to spread their message of hate and occupation to Indonesian Christians. Seeing the severity of bigoted views of evangelical Zionists in Indonesia, dialogue between pro-Palestinian activists in Indonesia from various backgrounds with Indonesian Christians and evangelicals should be emphasized. A son of a famous Pastor known for having more Zionist-leaning stances made news when he broke ranks and decided to speak with the Palestinian ambassador, immediately asking what to do to help Palestine. Theological critique of Zionism is also desperately needed from a Christian perspective and should be added to the Indonesian mainstream discourse. Decisions from churches such as PGI and GBI should be made more known, and so should the various Christian movements in the world criticizing Zionism, such as the pro-Palestinian stances of some church clergy from the Dutch PKN Church, be shared more in the discourse. The Zionist occupation must stop being conflated with becoming a religious conflict between Islam and Christianity. If Indonesian national media understood enough about the horrible crimes of Zionism, then the least they can do is to de-platform the Zionists and put them out of national TV and national media. As the hero Ghassan Kanafani said, there is no use in talking with those who put their knife to your neck. It would also be beneficial to track the influence of foreign Zionist churches and lobbies in Indonesia and to advocate for their boycott, both through organic mass efforts and political lobbying. Much is to be done within the evangelical Christian community to counter the tide of Zionist heresy among its believers, starting small, however little, would still have potential to bring a glimmer of light in the dark sky. Usman Harun is a lifelong Indonesian patriot, a born and practicing Muslim but “with his entire nation in mind.” From Vox Ummah via This RSS Feed.

Komunitas lemmy.world

Anon watches youtube in 2024

I still don’t understand the appeal of YouTube shorts… It feels like the rational behind it is “hey, I can watch 10 meaningless shorts in the same amount of time it would take to watch one video that has an actual point”. I guess that’s why I’ve never gotten in to tiktok either lol

Komunitas fedia.io

Meta admits some people can’t unfollow Donald Trump on Instagram

“Technical problems.” “Following” and “unfollowing” are pretty basic aspects of the service. How interesting that the “technical problems” only have to do with these specific accounts. Anything under Meta (FB, Insta, WhatsApp), Twitter/X, TikTok - you should be considering these to be fascist mouthpieces and interpret information gained through them with that lens.

Komunitas hackertalks.com

[Paper] Preferences and recommendations from content creators on carnivore diets: a social media analysis - 2026

Background - A carnivore diet is characterised by the exclusive consumption of animal foods, particularly red meat. Digital media, particularly TikTok and Instagram, often praise the health-promoting and disease-preventive properties of the carnivore diet. However, the scientific data on this form of nutrition is currently very limited. Methods - After creating a coding guide with an accompanying seven-day pretest and modification, a social media analysis was conducted on the Instagram platform over a period of one month. In addition to content related to nutrition and food, aspects such as lifestyle, advertising measures, and political or social statements were also collected. The survey was conducted quantitatively through categorization, accompanied by qualitative documentation of notable findings. Results - The analysis included 19 content creators (47% male, 53% female; aged 25–64) with an average of 157,758 ± 146,405 (25,200–582,000) followers. A total of 1,169 posts during the survey period showed a notable focus on health- and disease-related statements. With the exception of the strong emphasis on red meat, the nutritional and food recommendations were heterogeneous. This was accompanied by ideology-related themes, politically relevant statements, and critical portrayals of institutions such as science, politics, and industry, some of which could be classified as politically right-wing conservative. However, the data does not allow for a clear political classification. Overall, the carnivore diet was portrayed as positive. Conclusions - The one-sided view of carnivore nutrition, combined with political and social content, should be viewed critically. Nutrition professionals should pay attention to social media and counteract non-evidence-based claims with scientifically sound information. Full Paper - https://doi.org/10.1186/s41043-026-01336-4

Komunitas lemmy.world

US Authoritarianism Project Research Readings Channel on Tankietube

There are exactly 4:51 seconds of content uploaded to this channel at time of writing but we are cooking with the format it will look very good. and it does look, okay ! Feel free to send in readings of US history with a socialist perspective if you’d like to do that. right now im doing racism, history of. The US is very occupying black people coded and im gonna get the sources in a row about it for a bit and put out videos like these as we go. 👍 😀 yeah also so if you check the linktree these have been going up on the tikitoks for this project that i have, youre always welcome to make your own as well. be sure to specify if you have a preference of where its published if you send a submission.

Komunitas hexbear.net

A Gay Palestinian Fled to Israel’s “Safe Haven.” Israel Tried to Exploit Him for Intelligence.

cross-posted from: https://news.abolish.capital/post/53372 Kareem’s father was furious when he heard the rumors circulating in Ramallah about the sexuality of his 22-year-old son. “My dad aimed his gun towards me,” Kareem recalled, “and said that if he ever finds out that I’m gay, he would ‘rest a bullet between my eyes.’” Kareem, whose name has been changed to protect his safety, had lived in the close-knit West Bank city for years, but he’d long known he would one day need to leave. It was March 2024, and the Tel Aviv Court for Administrative Affairs had recently ruled that LGBTQ+ Palestinians can petition for asylum in Israel — upending years of precedent that considered them ineligible. The following month, Kareem crossed into Israel, a country that has occupied the West Bank for more than twice as long as he’d been alive. Supporters of Israel have long pointed to the “only democracy in the Middle East” as a purported safe haven for the LGBTQ+ community. While detractors say the argument amounts to “pinkwashing,” the use of LGBTQ+ inclusion to distract from moral and legal violations in other spheres, the Israeli government has doubled down on the concept, invoking it often to distract from violations of international law. In a speech before the United States Congress on July 24, 2024, for example, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu mocked protesters holding “Gays for Gaza” signs, saying they “might as well hold up signs saying ‘Chickens for KFC.’” As Netanyahu spoke, Kareem was living legally in Israel, believing his status secure while an administrative storm was brewing behind the scenes. Palestinians like Kareem might be safer by virtue of the distance from their families, but the bureaucratic process of seeking asylum imposes its own dangers. In interviews with The Intercept, Kareem and multiple advocates and lawyers for Palestinian asylum-seekers described how Israeli authorities put asylum-seekers through permit revocations, instability, and, in many cases, coerce them into sharing information with Israel’s internal intelligence agency. Kareem felt this pressure, he told The Intercept. At a processing facility at Sha’ar Ephraim, a crossing point in the separation wall west of Tulkarm in the northern West Bank, Kareem recalled, Israeli authorities repeatedly pressed him for information on friends and family still living in the West Bank, anything that might be of use. The implication was a quid pro quo: intelligence in exchange for an easier permit approval process. “When you are in such a fragile situation, you cannot be in the territories [the West Bank], and you don’t have status in Israel, the security bodies like the police … use this weakness and they try to get information or get someone’s cooperation from those people,” Kareem’s attorney, Tamir Blank, told The Intercept. “They promise them that they will not deport them or put them in jail.” Kareem didn’t have the kind of information necessary to secure such a process. He found himself, like so many Palestinian asylum-seekers in Israel, in a series of cascading double binds. After they flee, they find themselves trapped: Leaving the West Bank for Israel carries with it the stigma, true or not, of having collaborated with Israeli authorities, making it even more difficult to return, and leaving nowhere else to go. Home to about 30,000 Palestinians, Ramallah is small and insular, but it contains a space for queer Palestinians to hold conversations that aren’t always possible elsewhere in the West Bank. A loose network of activists hosts weekly community meetings that range from knitting circles to conversations dissecting the Eurocentricity of LGBTQ+ identity terminology in Arabic. During Ramadan this year, as rockets flew overhead during the Israel–U.S. war on Iran, they hosted a queer iftar in the city. Kareem was active with the group for a year before rumors made their way to his parents. They had long suspected “there was something off with me,” Kareem recalled. It also did not help that the family, as is typical of Ramallah’s upper class, is conservative and politically involved. His father works for the Palestinian Authority, just as his father before him, who was involved with the Palestine Liberation Organization before the 1993 Oslo Accords. The family home in Al-Bireh is an old stone building, “colder inside in the winter than it is outside,” according to Kareem, and adorned with a classic Palestinian metal gate. Aside from occasional Israeli military raids, Al-Bireh feels like the only true bubble inside of Israel’s occupation of the West Bank. There are upscale cafes, flower shops, and a concerted effort by all who live there to pretend they enjoy more freedom than they do. Despite the idyllic atmosphere, there are only a handful of checkpoints by which to exit the city, all manned by Israeli soldiers. [ Related With World’s Eyes on Iran, Israel Locks Down the West Bank](https://theintercept.com/2026/03/10/israel-iran-war-west-bank-lockdown/) Kareem worked in his cousin’s welding shop in the Jalazone refugee camp, where, as he would later recount to Israeli authorities, he faced years of abuse — both sexual and physical — from his cousins, who taunted him for his feminine presentation. After Kareem’s father confronted him, he recalled, “My father was sending my cousins after me to stalk my friends and me.” At first, Kareem thought he should flee to a different city in the West Bank, possibly Bethlehem. Israel had stopped issuing permits for most West Bank Palestinians after October 7, citing “security concerns,” and Kareem worried that his family’s associations with the Palestinian Authority would count against him. But the West Bank is small, so small that without checkpoints blocking the way, one could drive from Jenin at the top of the West Bank to Hebron at the bottom in about an hour and a half. As the crow flies, it is only 22 kilometers from Ramallah to Bethlehem. Families know each other, and word spreads fast. So Kareem tried to fashion a life for himself in Israel. Not only would his family follow him to Israel after he fled, but so too would Israel’s occupation. His life would turn into a series of military court hearings and attempts to solicit intelligence from him by Shin Bet, Israeli domestic intelligence, with the specter of returning home meaning likely death. Israeli forces patrol during a raid on Al-Bireh in the West Bank on Oct. 7, 2025. Photo: Rimawi Issam/Anadolu via Getty Images Kareem secured a welfare permit by April 2024 with the help of pro bono lawyers from HIAS, a Jewish humanitarian organization that provides legal support to asylum-seekers in Israel, including a small number of Palestinians fleeing persecution. He spent months sleeping on benches and couch surfing before finally moving into an emergency LGBTQ+ youth shelter in Tel Aviv called HaGag HaVarod (“The Pink Roof” in Hebrew), where he went from never having met an Israeli who wasn’t holding a rifle to living together in shared housing. “I was so confused. They had just given me the permit, so why would they take it away?” In October 2024, just six months after leaving the West Bank, Kareem woke up to an alert on his phone that his permit to stay in Israel had been invalidated. His lawyers advised him to leave the shelter immediately. It was operated under the Israeli Ministry of Welfare, putting him at risk of deportation without a permit. “I was so confused. They had just given me the permit, so why would they take it away?” Kareem recounted. His family appeared to have worked to sabotage his legal status through multiple channels. In June, they had filed a report with Israeli social services claiming Kareem was a Hamas member planning to attack civilians. When a security flag appeared in his file, triggering the revocation of his welfare permit, his lawyers raised the possibility in court that it too had been planted by his family to engineer his deportation. The Intercept attempted to reach Kareem’s father for comment but was unable to get in touch. “I had a security block on my application,” Kareem said. “There was no way to get it back without petitioning the military commander for reconsideration.” Nimrod Avigal, deputy director of HIAS Israel, has been tracking LGBTQ+ Palestinian asylum claims for more than a decade. He worked on Kareem’s case at the outset. “Everything became much more difficult after October 7,” he said. “Many more people were refused because of security issues, mostly related to a family member.” Back in his hometown, rumors were circulating that Kareem was collaborating with Israeli authorities, according to testimony submitted to the Jerusalem District Court, a justification not only for his family to track him down, but also for others to help them. His family began posting notices in Facebook groups offering a cash reward for any information leading to his whereabouts, declaring him a “missing person.” One such post appeared in a public Jerusalem Facebook group with more than 450,000 members. His phone was flooded with calls, 60 to 80 a day, mostly from unknown numbers. Eventually, as Kareem recounted to The Intercept, he threw his phone into the Mediterranean Sea in the hopes it would solve the problem. It did not. The family hired men in Ramallah to track Kareem down on the other side of the separation wall. “They said that they were hired by my family to look for me and bring me back ‘after I tarnished the family’s reputation,’” Kareem recalled, “and that they need to ‘wash their honor as soon as possible.’” A childhood friend now living in Spain sent Kareem a voice memo with a warning: “Your family has placed a bounty of 35,000 shekels on your head. It is absolutely clear that this will not end well and that your family is truly determined to catch you.” The only thing standing between Kareem and deportation back to the West Bank was his welfare permit, and now it was gone. In a court filing, Kareem’s attorney wrote that his family members wished “to obtain information about his whereabouts and bring him to the territories, dead or alive, in order to settle accounts with him, that is, to ensure he does not remain alive.” Israel contended in court that Palestinians in Kareem’s position were motivated not by genuine fear but by a desire to “enjoy the more liberal lifestyle in Israel, rather than facing an actual threat,” language drawn from a 2013 Israeli Inter-Ministerial Committee report on Palestinians claiming persecution based on sexual orientation. Israel contended that queer Palestinians were motivated by a desire to “enjoy the more liberal lifestyle in Israel, rather than facing an actual threat.” In response to a request for comment from The Intercept, COGAT, the Israeli military body that oversees civilian affairs in the occupied territories, said that permits of this kind are granted “first and foremost for the purpose of saving lives, and allow the applicant to remain in Israel until a permanent solution is found in a receiving country.” As Kareem’s lawyers and other human rights organizations in Israel have long argued, rather than being welcomed, gay Palestinians are frequently subject to blackmail by Israeli authorities, who pressure them to provide intelligence in exchange for protection, turning their vulnerability into a tool of coercion. In the 10 Years Tamir Blank has been working with Palestinians from the West Bank filing asylum claims in Israel, he has accepted that many of his clients will either willingly choose to collaborate with Israeli intelligence or be coerced into it. Many asylum-seekers feel pressured to offer intelligence to Israeli authorities in the hope that it might help them obtain a humanitarian stay permit, which entitles them to the right to work. (Even that is a relatively recent development: The permits only began allowing legal employment in 2022, after extensive litigation, before which Palestinians were often forced into grey industries like the sex trade.) In one case, a transgender Palestinian woman named Zehava who fled the West Bank in 2021 died by suicide after Israeli authorities revoked her permit. [ Related Israel Revoked Palestinians’ Work Permits — Then Launched a Deadly Crackdown on Laborers](https://theintercept.com/2025/12/04/israel-palestinians-work-permits-laborers/) “The Israeli policy is to minimize the presence of Palestinians within its borders, in the West Bank and within the 48 borders,” referring to Israel’s pre-1967 territory, said Anat Matar, an Israeli academic and head of the Israeli Committee for Palestinian Prisoners. Israeli authorities deter Palestinians from fleeing to Israel with bureaucratic hurdles, she told The Intercept, as they seek to maintain a Jewish demographic majority. Blank’s clients are often so desperate to hold onto their status, feeling pressured to offer intelligence is “not something that is unique,” he said. The authorities “use every weakness they can.” Kareem, however, was out of luck. He had no such intelligence to offer, as is often the case with LGBTQ+ Palestinians forced to flee. According to Blank, the very fact of their social exclusion means they are rarely privy to intelligence of value to Israeli authorities, regardless of who their family members might be. Because he was born in the West Bank and holds a Palestinian Authority-issued ID, Kareem is unable to ever obtain residency or citizenship in Israel. Doing so, Israeli authorities fear, would set a precedent for a broader right of return for Palestinians displaced in the 1948 Arab–Israeli War. The original welfare permit Israel issued required Kareem to pursue resettlement in a third country; there was no path for him to remain in Israel. Reut Ahdut, of the Aguda Israel, which until 2025 ran a program offering assistance to LGBTQ+ Palestinians fleeing the West Bank, said permits that used to be relatively stable are now often granted for only one to three months, with applicants required to regularly provide evidence that they are at risk across all Palestinian Authority territories, including the West Bank. Despite the 2024 ruling, Israel’s Population and Immigration Authority maintains that Palestinians are not subject to the United Nations Refugee Convention and therefore that it is not obligated to provide them asylum on the grounds that UNRWA, the U.N. agency mandated to provide assistance to Palestinian refugees, bears that responsibility instead. After banning UNRWA from operating on its territory in 2025, Israel demolished UNRWA’s East Jerusalem headquarters in January. After a court battle at the Jerusalem District Court, Kareem’s permit was reinstated in December 2024, and he has since been able to renew it with the permission of the military commander. In its ruling, the court acknowledged that the security intelligence used to revoke his permit may have been “based on false allegations that his family has made against him, in order to bring about his deportation.” For now, Kareem has no path out of Israel — his life suspended, renewed six months at a time. At one point, Kareem hoped he could be resettled to Canada through the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees resettlement program, but amid rising anti-immigrant sentiment even in Canada, that option has vanished. His time living in the shelter is over. With the help of the Tel Aviv Municipality, Kareem has moved into transitional housing in the Tel Aviv area. He keeps his lightheartedness, switching seamlessly from referencing TikToks he found hilarious, to drama at work, to decrying how life as a Palestinian in Israel has become all but impossible since October 7th. With the Port of Jaffa to the left and the Tel Aviv skyline looming off to the right, Kareem stared out at the Mediterranean, reflecting on the past year. “I hate the sea, I really do, and I am supposed to say at least I got to see it because of my permit. But really what I miss is my home, the West Bank,” Kareem said. “That is where I am from, but for now, the sea will do.” The post A Gay Palestinian Fled to Israel’s “Safe Haven.” Israel Tried to Exploit Him for Intelligence. appeared first on The Intercept. From The Intercept via This RSS Feed.

Komunitas feddit.uk

A one-word answer to why EU lost control of Big Tech: Ireland

cross-posted from: https://feddit.uk/post/49987153 A follow up of sorts to this article Dublin ‘can’t trust itself to do the right thing’: Why Irish EU presidency should recuse itself from regulating Big Tech A one-word answer to why EU lost control of Big Tech: Ireland My favourite bit of interviewing Dr. Johnny Ryan was when he yelled “just off a plane, so if you know the answer, I will lose my mind if you ask me to repeat myself for the recording again” at me. It didn’t make it to the final interview, which was published on EUobserver. Ryan is, among the much needed group of people who speak up against Big Tech, one of the more eloquent and direct. He’s also very friendly. His work at the Irish Council of Civil Liberties’ Enforce includes major investigations into the many, many, many ills of online advertising/surveillance capitalism, a radical belief in the underutilised potential of GDPR (the EU’s main data rights law) and now, a plea to have Ireland recuse itself from all digital files in its upcoming EU council presidency. For those who don’t know (I didn’t), the answer to why the EU has not been able to crack down on Big Tech more is simple. One word, in fact: Ireland. Ireland’s job, by way of how the GDPR was drafted, is to defend the rest of Europe when it comes to the tech companies headquartered there. Meta, Google, TikTok, Microsoft, LinkedIn, X, Apple all picked Ireland. So did most of their AI activity. Which means, in Ryan’s words: “Ireland is responsible for defending the rest of Europe when those companies abuse Europeans’ data.” And surprise surprise, they’re not doing so adequately. Continue Reading Here - https://euobserver.com/218423/a-one-word-answer-to-why-eu-lost-control-of-big-tech-ireland/

Komunitas kbin.social

Was the allegations against michael jackson ever proven right or wrong ?

Nothing proven. Much documentary about it though. There’s a vine/TikTok dude that made a short about it somewhat recently in a shallow and humorous fashion. Basically, the Jackson dad was an asshole who beat his kids. Michael being the most successful one got the worst of it, as per the documentary. Not sure if his brothers covered him and how often. He didn’t have a childhood, he had beatings, training and concerts. His soft-spoken voice was beaten into him, only allowed to use his full voice for singing. His Neverland was built for that which he never had and he tried to give that to other children he felt were like him. Whether something happened is only known by the the people involved, but odds are that unless Michael himself was molested as a child, it’s far more likely that he was deeply traumatized, cried himself to sleep and had recurring night terrors. I’ll repeat, only the people involved know what happened and they’re not talking.

Komunitas mander.xyz

Coding students whose jobs were taken by AI forced to find work at Chipotle

Economists and industry executives say the hiring slowdown is also tied to post-pandemic overstaffing, aggressive cost-cutting, high interest rates and widespread hiring freezes. Vs a tiktok video about overhyped topic News editors: Let’s go ahead and publish another “news” article about a TikTok video on an overhyped topic!

Komunitas hexbear.net

TikTik regulation bill’s future looking wobbly in Senate as calls—and threats—pour in: ‘OK, listen, if you ban TikTok I will find you and shoot you’

TikTok has been urging its users — many of whom are young — to call their representatives, even providing an easy link to the phone numbers. Lol the first time I contacted my representatives was because Failblog told me to in order to kill the Stop Online Piracy Act around 2009. Glad the tradition’s being kept alive.