Big Tech Censors Palestine—Again

Exactly a month after censoring a Palestine webinar at San Francisco State, Zoom has censored two other campus Palestine events—this time at the University of Hawai'i-Manoa (UHM) and at New York University (NYU). 

As part of today's National Day of Action Against the Criminalization and Censorship of Campus Speech, over 10 universities and academic groups are hosting Palestine webinars on their university Zoom accounts featuring a recorded video from Palestinian activist Leila Khaled.

Zoom unilaterally canceled the University of Hawai'i event on Wednesday, two days before the webinar—mirroring its actions against San Francisco State, with reports of other cancelations today including at NYU, where Senior Staff Attorney Radhika Sainath is scheduled to speak. Facebook also deleted an event at the University of Western Ontario within hours of it being posted, and organizers had their accounts immediately disabled. 

Together with ten other civil rights groups, we wrote to Zoom demanding that they cease censorship of Palestinian narratives, and to University of Hawai'i and the University of Massachusetts Boston, where events were scheduled, emphasizing their obligation to protect the academic freedom of their faculty and students. 

"Your actions are a dangerous attack on free speech and academic freedom, and an abuse of your contract with public university systems. Your status as an essential public service does not give you veto power over the content of the nation’s classrooms and public events," warned the legal letter.

By canceling the UHM and NYU events, Zoom has censored a conversation on Hawaiian and Palestinian liberation, as represented by the academic work and experience of the panelists and moderator. 

We are supporting the organizers of the events at UHM, NYU, and across the country, alongside the US Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (USACBI), which called for the day of action.

We encourage you to join any of today's day of action events, which you can find here on USACBI's site.