Why should a few companies – or a few billionaire owners – have the power to decide everything about online spaces that billions of people use? This unaccountable model of governance has led stakeholders of all stripes to criticize platforms’ decisions as arbitrary, corrupt or irresponsible. In the early, pre-web days of the social internet, decisions about the spaces people gathered in online were often made by members of the community.
The Conversation
I Once Lived on Kibbutz Re’im: Daily Life in Gaza is Brutal
In the summer of 2010, the author went to volunteer on Kibbutz Re’im, close to the Gaza border, to both strengthen her relationship to Israel as a North American Jewish woman and learn about socialist communities. Then she went to the Gaza border.
How Generative AI Threatens $68 Billion SEO Industry
Google, Microsoft and others boast that generative artificial intelligence tools like ChatGPT will make searching the internet better than ever for users. Rather than getting a list of links, both organic and paid, based on whatever keywords or questions a user types in, generative AI will instead simply give you a text result in the form of an answer. But it may destroy the US$68 billion search engine optimization industry that companies like Google helped create.
The Hezbollah Threat to Israel–and Lebanon
Lebanon, which is teetering on the edge of economic and political collapse, risks becoming entangled in the escalating war between Israel and Hamas. Hezbollah has launched multiple attacks on Israeli targets from Lebanon, prompting return fire from the Israel Defense Forces. Over a dozen people have died, mostly Hezbollah fighters but also at least a few civilians on both sides of the border, including a Reuters photojournalist.
The Link Between Morbid Curiosity and Conspiracy Theories
From blood-harvesting Satanists who stealthily run the world to shapeshifting alien lizards invading the world, conspiracy theories often offer alternative explanations of unsettling events. They all centre on a proposal that a malicious group of people is behind strange or political happenings. Conspiracy theories have another thing in common – they go against mainstream explanations and lack concrete evidence.
Union Power: Health Care Workers Win
The Coalition of Kaiser Permanente Unions reached a tentative agreement with its employer on a new four-year contract on Oct. 13, 2023. They agreed following the largest documented strike of U.S. health care workers on record, which involved more than 75,000 workers in several states and the District of Columbia.
The Disturbing Jingoism of Amish Tourist Towns
The shops that line the main streets of supposedly peace-loving Amish towns like Berlin, Sugarcreek and Walnut Creek sell a plethora of items that feature Christian nationalist motifs, intense patriotism and ominous suggestions of violence – all antithetical to the core values of the Amish.
Gaza Has Been Under Siege for Decades. Its Health System Is in Critical Condition.
For the wounded, injured and sick in Gaza, there is seemingly no escape. On Oct. 17, 2023, news broke that at least 500 patients, staff and people seeking shelter from Israeli bombs had been killed in an explosion at a hospital, according to health authorities in the Hamas-run enclave. It amounts to a devastating loss of life during a campaign of bombing that has not spared the frail or sick.
Revenge Is Poor Strategy. Israel Needs Only Ask the U.S.
In the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks by al-Qaida on the United States, President George W. Bush made an expansive pledge to end terrorism. It didn’t work out so well. As Israel pursues its response to the Hamas attack, the Israeli government would be well advised to remember the past two decades of often indecisive warfare conducted by both the United States and Israel against insurgent and terrorist groups.
Laws of Combat in the Latest Palestine-Israel War
The killing of Israeli civilians by Hamas and retaliatory airstrikes on the densely populated Gaza Strip by Israel raises numerous issues under international law. President Joe Biden said that that while democracies like the U.S. and Israel uphold such standards, “terrorists” such as Hamas “purposefully target civilians.” But the European Union’s top diplomat said that Israel was not acting in accordance with international law by cutting water, electricity and food to civilians in Gaza.