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I think surveillance is the strongest threat to freedom of speech online.
Algorithms and predicted policing and security technologies of surveillance
that are being produced and used in so many countries lately
and that also obviously hack our accounts, our privacy, our intimate things
and basically leave us with no privacy anymore.
If you're a user, or a journalist, or any publishing entity,
if you feel that you're being watched all the time
you're either going to impose some kind of self-censorship,
or your take the risk but also the consequences
by either being jailed or being imprisoned in certain situations.
I think the term "hate speech" is a bit problematic, because we never know
to draw the line. In Lebanon for example we've had people getting arrested
for cursing the president on Facebook or on Twitter.
And in my opinion that shouldn't happen.
I think lately the phenomenon of many legislations in many countries in our region,
specifically in the Palestinian reality; those legislations are coming in in a shape
and title that sound good and productive like "cyber crime law".
But actually underneath there's a lot of attempt to shrink the freedom of expression online.
And it's usually being done right now and justified under fighting terrorism
and privacy is being traded off in the official narrative for security.
We have to pay great attention to these legislations!
I think we should have more conversations about the term "hate speech"
to try to define it more, to know where we should do something about it
and when to let people have their own free expression.
On a local level I would say there's always benefits in exposing
different surveillance practices of the government,
especially in the lack of systems of accountability.
But it's always hard to get this kind of information on surveillance practices.
On a global level I would say that governments who really and truly believe
and promote themselves as human rights defenders
should impose more scrutinized measures
to track the imports and exports of their products, especially to countries with really bad
human rights records, to see how it's being used against people.