Drop Site News: "Censorship and Military Support: How Big Tech Supports Israel"

Date: October 20, 2025
Host: Martel (A), Co-host/Interviewer (C)
Guest: Omar Zaza, Assistant Professor at San Francisco State University, Author of Terms of Servitude: Zionism, Silicon Valley and Digital Settler Colonialism in the Palestinian Liberation Struggle

Episode Overview

This episode explores the evolving relationship between big tech platforms and the Israeli government, with a focus on how Silicon Valley supports Israel through both digital censorship and direct military collaboration. Host Martel and co-hosts interview Omar Zaza, who provides critical insights from his book, examining the paradox of social media’s potential for liberatory narrative being subverted into mechanisms of oppression and militarization. The conversation covers the normalization of censorship, tech’s complicity in war crimes, internal dissent within tech companies, and the global diffusion of Israeli surveillance technologies.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Big Tech’s Shift: From Narrative Freedom to Censorship

• Origins of the Shift:

  • Early social media gave voice to Palestinian narratives suppressed by traditional media.
  • Companies that once enabled resistance now enforce censorship of pro-Palestinian content.
  • “How is it that the technologies that gave Palestinians and their supporters a way to challenge the dehumanization... now become new sites of censorship and repression?” (Omar Zaza, 02:10)

• Case Studies:

  • Mass account suspensions, content removals, shadow banning—especially after key events like the Sheikh Jarrah protests and the Gaza bombings.
  • Example of how even “legacy media” began to cover the scale of digital silencing. (B, 05:00-06:36)

2. Mechanisms and Methods of Suppression

• From Egalitarianism to Algorithmic Control:

  • Early promises of decentralized, egalitarian speech.
  • Now: media consolidation, algorithmic manipulation, and direct top-down pressure in tech firms.
  • “There is an attempt to... put the toothpaste back in the tube a little bit.” (C, 08:16)

• Techniques Used:

  • Algorithmic demotion and shadow banning—difficult to prove, but corroborated by users and internal leaks.
  • Introduction of new “community standards” to preemptively ban anti-Zionist or anti-Israel expressions under the guise of anti-discrimination.
  • “It’s about fortifying an identity-based form of oppression... by basically eliminating Palestinians from the digital sphere.” (Omar Zaza, 09:16)

• Normalization:

  • Once one tech giant implements anti-Palestinian censorship, others follow.
  • Example: Meta’s 2024 policy updates, Twitch bans.
  • False conflation of anti-Zionism and antisemitism is used as justification. (B, 12:00)

Quote:
“The more normalized it becomes, the more difficult it is to escape... It signals to the others: this is not only okay, this is the way to do it in order to thrive in this industry.”
—Omar Zaza [13:30]

3. Economic Consolidation and Ideological Alliance

• Big Tech as a Node of Power:

  • Tech industry now functions as an integral facet of US power, alongside Wall Street and the military-industrial complex.
  • Former utopian ideals and moral missions of Silicon Valley have faded; economic and political interests now prevail. (C, 15:48)

• Internal Resistance:

  • Despite repression, there remains employee dissent, whistleblowing, and activism (e.g., Project Nimbus at Google/Amazon, the no Tech for Apartheid campaign).
  • Whistleblowers provide vital information on tech-Israel relationships and company policies.
  • “That’s one of the most important things that people who are within these industries can do... Whistleblowers play a very prominent role.” (Omar Zaza, 17:33)

• Notable Success:

  • Microsoft’s withdrawal from cooperating with Israeli Unit 8200, driven by internal activism. (C, 21:13)

4. Tech Enabling Occupation, Apartheid, and Violence

• Material Support:

  • US and Western companies provide direct surveillance, data processing, cloud services for Israeli military operations (e.g., drone strikes, mass surveillance).
  • “It’s not a question unfortunately of what is best for human rights... It’s a question of what is best for the bottom line.” (B, 26:44)

• Israel as “Startup Colony” and Test-bed:

  • Tech innovations are often developed on occupied land, benefiting from dispossession.
  • Israeli surveillance, once tested on Palestinians, is then exported worldwide.

Quote:
“The surveillance that begins in Palestine never stays in Palestine... There’s always this boomerang... Techno-fying the occupation is something that’s going to have returns for the industry as a whole.”
—Omar Zaza [25:30]

5. The Globalization of Israeli Surveillance

• Export and Dissemination:
  • Veterans of Israeli intelligence units (ex: Unit 8200) frequently join or found startups, later acquired by US Big Tech firms.
  • Surveillance tactics and spyware—pioneered in Palestine—are bought and sold internationally, “refined” through occupation.
  • US industries generally scrutinize foreign influence—except Israel, which is enabled to embed deeply in tech and other sectors. (C, 28:34-31:47)

6. The Symbiotic Relationship

• Political Symbiosis:
  • The alignment of US, Western, and Israeli interests is not unique to tech, but tech is the latest and perhaps the most powerful industry to reinforce this integration.
  • “As long as imperialism remains unchallenged... industries will always move to support the Israeli colonial project, whatever form they take.” (B, 35:39)

Quote:
“Things are so increasingly aligned around Israel and in support of Israel, you know, and Israel’s intentions, however horrible its actions actually are... The Israeli project is the Western project, is the US project.”
—Omar Zaza [33:00]

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Erasure:
  “It would be difficult to find people who don’t understand on some level that talking about Palestine is repressed or censored in general. But... the extent to which censorship of Palestine is normalized... surprised me.” —Omar Zaza [09:16]

• On Employee Resistance:
  “We need to continue to basically throw cogs in the wheels of the machinery that’s continuing to lead to that death and destruction... find ways to sabotage this process as much as we can.” —Omar Zaza [20:40]

• On Tech’s Motivations:
  “Everything we’ve seen come about is the result of a series of strategic and coordinated choices... There’s no inevitability to fortifying Israeli apartheid, colonialism and genocide.” —Omar Zaza [24:00]

• On Global Impact:
  “What starts in Gaza or starts in the West Bank by no means ends there. It’s only the first laboratory in their view of how to test out these technologies and these practices.” —C, [28:34]

Important Timestamps

• 00:17-02:10: Introduction to tech’s shift and guest introduction
• 02:10-06:36: The paradox of tech’s liberatory potential and its current complicity
• 06:36-09:16: Centralization, algorithmic control, new forms of censorship
• 09:16-14:41: Mechanisms and normalization of suppression, corporate policies
• 14:41-17:33: Economic consolidation and emergence of tech as a key power
• 17:33-21:13: Internal dissent, whistleblowing, employee activism
• 21:13-23:26: Direct support for Israeli military and surveillance capacity
• 23:26-28:24: Israel as “startup colony,” boomerang of surveillance
• 28:24-31:47: Israeli surveillance tech’s global export and political implications
• 31:47-35:39: Political and ideological symbiosis, critique of tech exceptionalism
• 35:39-End: Closing thanks and summary

Tone & Language

The conversation is deeply critical, analytical, and candid. Speakers use direct language about “genocide,” “apartheid,” “settler colonialism,” and are not shy in calling out tech’s role in facilitating state violence. The tone is urgent, yet resilient, highlighting both demoralizing realities and hope derived from employee activism and whistleblowing.

Summary

This episode is a comprehensive examination of how Big Tech’s transformation—once a promise of egalitarian communication—now contributes to digital silencing, material support for state violence, and global proliferation of oppressive surveillance tactics rooted in the Israeli occupation. Through detailed analysis and compelling examples, Omar Zaza and the Drop Site team highlight the stakes, the mechanics, and the forms of resistance emerging within and beyond Silicon Valley.