Digital Rights Weekly Update: 18 - 24 July

7amleh Releases New Study: “War and Digital Shadows: Palestinian Women Between Voice Confiscation and Body Exposure in Digital Space”

7amleh

July 21, 2025, 7amleh - The Arab Center for the Advancement of Social Media has released a new study titled “War and Digital Shadows: Palestinian Women Between Voice Confiscation and Body Exposure in Digital Space.” The study focuses on gender-based digital violence targeting Palestinian women amid the ongoing genocide in Gaza, where such violence is used as a tool of repression and control, undermining women’s presence and rights to expression and participation. It highlights the intersection of colonial, digital, and patriarchal violence, in a context marked by fragile protections and persistent violations that extend beyond the battlefield to target women’s bodies and voices online. The study is rooted in key questions about how gender-based violence has become a tool of political repression and warfare, and how perpetrators exploit the legal vacuum and chaos brought by war to carry out attacks.

Meta allows ads crowdfunding for IDF drones, consumer watchdog finds

The Guardian

Meta is hosting ads on Facebook, Instagram and Threads from pro-Israel entities that are raising money for military equipment including drones and tactical gear for Israeli Defense Force battalions, seemingly a violation of the company’s stated advertising policies, new research shows. “We are the sniper team of Unit Shaked, stationed in Gaza, and we urgently need shooting tripods to complete our mission in Jabalia,” one ad on Facebook read, first published on 11 June and still active on 17 July. These paid ads were first discovered and flagged to Meta by the global consumer watchdog Ekō, which identified at least 117 ads published since March 2025 that explicitly sought donations for military equipment for the IDF. It is the second time the organization has reported ads by the same publishers to Meta. In a previous investigation from December 2024, Ekō flagged 98 ads to Meta, prompting the tech giant to take many of them down. However, the company has largely allowed the publishers to start new campaigns with identical ads since then. The IDF itself is not running the fundraising calls.

NYPD Bypassed Facial Recognition Ban to ID Pro-Palestinian Student Protester

The City

A city fire marshal used FDNY’s access to a facial recognition software to help NYPD detectives identify a pro-Palestinian protester at Columbia University, circumventing policies that tightly restrict the Police Department’s use of the technology.  Details of the arrangement emerged in a recent decision by a Manhattan criminal court judge and in a lawsuit seeking information from the FDNY filed this month by the Legal Aid Society, which represented the protester, Zuhdi Ahmed, now a 21-year-old pre-med CUNY student going into his senior year of college. Police identified Ahmed after searching for a young man accused of hurling what they said was a rock at a pro-Israeli protester during an April 2024 skirmish at Columbia. 

AIPAC-Backed Lawmakers Are Pushing AI Funding for Israel 

JACOBIN

Congressional Republicans have delivered on the pro-Israel organization AIPAC’s wish list in the latest military spending bill, including tens of millions of dollars a year for the Israeli military to develop AI technologies.  A wish list of legislative items prioritized by the pro-Israel lobbying powerhouse American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) earlier this year has been nearly entirely fulfilled by the new National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), including tens of millions of dollars a year for the Israeli military to develop artificial intelligence technologies. Congressional Republicans have, as usual, turned the must-pass annual defense policy legislation into a defense industry bonanza. The latest version of the NDAA that advanced in the House last week authorizes $848 billion in spending for the US military, much of which will be funneled (with additional revenue from Donald Trump’s megabill) straight to private defense contractors like Boeing and Lockheed Martin.

Israeli minister shares AI video on X showing future Gaza without Palestinians

Middle East Eye

Gila Gamliel, Israel’s science and technology minister, has shared an AI-generated video on X showing post-war Gaza with Palestinians ethnically cleansed from the territory. The video imagines a Trump Tower and other high rise buildings in the Palestinian enclave. It also shows Israelis enjoying food and drinks in markets, as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu walks along the beach with his wife. “This is what Gaza will look like in the future. Voluntary migration of Gazans only with Trump and Netanyahu. It’s us or them,” Gamliel wrote.