Meta's WhatsApp challenged for complicity in Israel’s Gaza genocide
A software engineer and blogger has challenged the Meta technology company over accusations that it is sharing users’ data in its WhatsApp messaging application with Israel to help the regime identify targets in the war on the Gaza Strip.
In an article on his blog, Paul Biggar highlighted a recent report by Israeli outlets +972 Magazine and Local Call about the use of the artificial intelligence (AI)-powered database named Lavender in the Gaza onslaught.
He said that a little-discussed detail in the article is that Israel is killing people based on being in the same WhatsApp group.
“Meta has been promoting WhatsApp as a ‘private’ social network, including ‘end-to-end’ encryption of messages,” he said.
“Providing this data as input for Lavender undermines their claim that WhatsApp is a private messaging app. It is beyond obscene and makes Meta complicit in Israel's killings of … targets and their families, in violation of International Humanitarian Law and Meta's publicly stated commitment to human rights.”
Biggar also referred to the “close ties” to Israel of the three most senior Meta officials, including Chief Information Security Officer Guy Rosen, founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg, and former Chief Operating Officer and current board member Sheryl Sandberg.
“This allyship with Israel from the most senior parts of Meta's governance – CISO, CEO, and board member – sheds light on why Israel's military is able to get this information from WhatsApp,” he noted.
The blogger further asked a list of questions from Meta, saying without answers it seems impossible to take seriously the company’s claim that WhatsApp is a private messaging app.
Earlier this week, UN experts deplored Israel's use of AI and relative military directives in the besieged Gaza, warning that the measure is leading to an unprecedented toll on the civilian population and infrastructure in the besieged Palestinian territory.
Israel waged its brutal war on Gaza on October 7 after the Palestinian Hamas resistance group carried out a historic operation against the usurping entity in retaliation for the regime’s intensified atrocities against the Palestinian people.
The Tel Aviv regime has so far killed at least 33,970 Palestinians, mostly women and children, and injured 76,770 others.
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