Terms of Servitude: Big Tech’s Rise in Silencing Palestinian Voices and Advancing Genocide

Wednesday, October 15, 2025, 6:30 pm

Middle East Children’s Alliance, 1101 8th Street, Berkeley, CA 84710

Event is free but please RSVP

Join MECA in welcoming Omar Zahzah to discuss his new book, Terms of Servitude: Zionism, Silicon Valley, and Digital Settler/Colonialism in the Palestine Liberation Struggle.

Zahzah illustrates how big tech has leveraged massive power to spread propaganda, silence criticism of Israel, and smear dissenters. Zahzah calls this “digital settler colonialism” and shows how it operates in both subtle and overt ways—from shadow banning to blacklisting to paid trolling—across platforms. He also profiles the creative Palestinian activists, artists, and journalists who are outwitting the seemingly all-powerful tech titans and getting their message out despite the massive forces arrayed against them.

OMAR ZAHZAH is a writer, poet, organizer of Lebanese Palestinian descent, and Assistant Professor of Arab and Muslim Ethnicities and Diasporas (AMED) Studies at San Francisco State University. Omar has covered digital repression in relation to Palestine as a freelance journalist since May 2021, with work appearing in such outlets as Al Jazeera, Middle East Eye, Electronic Intifada, Mondoweiss, CounterPunch.