Sada Social diligently observes the collective dissent voiced by numerous Meta employees, encompassing Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, Messenger, and Threads, regarding the Meta company’s complicity in the genocidal war against the Gaza Strip, its endorsement of the Israeli occupation, and its fueling of the “Lavender” artificial intelligence system used by the Israeli military to kill Palestinian individuals within the Gaza enclave.
The “Lavender” is an artificial intelligence platform employed by the Israeli military for the purpose of conducting airstrikes upon individuals situated within the Gaza Strip, notably characterized by its diminished reliance on human intervention. Operating with a lenient methodology in the determination and execution of targeting individuals, it predicts who will be killed within Gaza confines subsequently orchestrating airstrikes when said individuals are at home with their families.
The reports monitored by the Sada Social Center indicate that one of the inputs to the “Lavender” system relies on data collected from WhatsApp groups containing names of Palestinians or activists who are wanted by ‘Israel’.
The Israeli Lavender system, supported by artificial intelligence, identifies Palestinians by tracking their communications via WhatsApp or the groups they join.
This development follows a series of admonitions issued by Sada Social concerning Meta’s violation of privacy on WhatsApp, which the company describes as an “end-to-end encrypted” application, denoting a security protocol wherein messages are shielded through encryption mechanisms that the company itself can’t see or monitor.
Since the onset of the genocidal war on October 7, the enforcement of surveillance and violation of users’ privacy through WhatsApp has escalated, with more than 670 numbers of Palestinian users being banned, over 78% of whom are journalists and users in the Gaza Strip, directly impacting their lives.
Sada Social calls upon Meta management to adhere to responsibility and transparency across its various platforms, and to release transparency reports that have been withheld since the onset of the genocidal war.
It also urges the Independent Supervisory Board to conduct an urgent and genuine investigation into Meta’s leak of Palestinian data and its involvement in the Israeli genocide.
