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Anonymous ID: 678a1a Jan. 19, 2025, 2:09 p.m. No.22383345   🗄️.is 🔗kun

Sad reason a beloved Palestinian café in Sydney is being forced to close

 

A popular Palestinian café in Sydney's Inner West has had to close up shop following difficulties with their landlord.

 

Restauranteur Sara Shaweesh announced Khamsa Eatery would close its doors after service on Sunday following an enormous rent increase proposed by the site owner.

 

The restaurant had been open for eight years, including two years in St Peters, after moving from Newtown in 2023.

 

Ms Shaweesh told Broadsheet she couldn't strike a deal with her landlord, who reportedly proposed a 50 per cent rent increase.

 

She said the challenges became 'too difficult to navigate'.

 

'As we close our doors, we feel it's important to shed light on the challenges small businesses like ours face,' Ms Shaweesh wrote in a post to Instagram.

 

'Without meaningful government support, places like Khamsa are increasingly at risk.

 

'We hope this sparks conversations about the need to protect the diversity and identity that small businesses bring to our community.'

 

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14301519/Sydney-Palestine-cafe-khamsa-eatery-close.html

Anonymous ID: 678a1a Jan. 19, 2025, 2:34 p.m. No.22383585   🗄️.is 🔗kun

US Jewish groups pushed Meta to crack down on hate speech. Now, it’s reversing course

 

The company will loosen restrictions and halt automation to detect most violations as it adapts to a political era increasingly shaped by Trump and the Republican Party

 

JTA — Six months ago, Jewish groups celebrated a policy win when Meta banned the use of “Zionist” as a coded slur against Jews and Israel. Now, the same organizations are condemning the company for dramatically loosening restrictions on speech across its social media platforms.

 

“It is mind-blowing how one of the most profitable companies in the world, operating with such sophisticated technology, is taking significant steps back in terms of addressing antisemitism, hate, misinformation and protecting vulnerable and marginalized groups online,” the Anti-Defamation League’s CEO, Jonathan Greenblatt, said in a statement.

 

Greenblatt was responding to Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s announcement that the company would do away with its fact-check program and broaden the terms of what can be said on Facebook and Instagram. It will also stop using automation to detect and remove hate speech — limiting its use to catching terrorism, child sexual exploitation and other offenses.

 

“This is a trade-off,” Zuckerberg said in a video message. “It means that we’re going to catch less bad stuff, but we’ll also reduce the number of innocent people’s posts and accounts that we accidentally take down.”

 

Zuckerberg, who is Jewish, said the moves respond to what he called a “cultural tipping point” following the US presidential election. Conservatives have long alleged that Meta suppresses right-wing speech, and Zuckerberg’s advisors and detractors both explained the move as a strategic pivot toward accommodating a political era increasingly shaped by Donald Trump and the Republican Party.

 

To replace its fact-checking program, Meta said it would introduce a “community notes” feature similar to the one on X, the social media platform owned by Trump ally Elon Musk, and otherwise favor allowing users to rebut posts they view as objectionable over removing them entirely.

 

“We want to undo the mission creep that has made our rules too restrictive and too prone to over-enforcement,” the company said in its announcement. “We’re getting rid of a number of restrictions on topics like immigration, gender identity and gender that are the subject of frequent political discourse and debate. It’s not right that things can be said on TV or the floor of Congress, but not on our platforms.”

 

The changes could significantly affect what users see on social media. Last year, Meta’s automated systems detected approximately 95% of hate speech violations on Facebook and 98% on Instagram, according to data self-reported by the company. Millions of posts were removed as a result.

 

That was a positive sign for advocates who have battled the proliferation of antisemitism and other hate speech online. Meta has historically invited outside input when faced with content questions, and Jewish groups, such as the ADL, the World Jewish Congress and a nonprofit focused on online antisemitism called CyberWell, have lobbied the company for years hoping to rein into online antisemitism.

 

Now, those groups are balking at the social media giant’s retreat from policing the content on its platforms, which it announced after a six-week post-election policy overhaul reportedly conducted by Zuckerberg and just a handful of confidantes.

 

The World Jewish Congress, for example, criticized Meta’s new reliance on user-generated “community notes” to combat misinformation, arguing that it shifts the burden of addressing hate speech onto marginalized groups.

 

“In an online environment already rife with hostility, reducing protections and clear guidelines will open the floodgates to content that fuels real-world threats, including violent acts targeting Jewish communities,” said Yfat Barak-Cheney, executive director of the organization’s Technology and Human Rights Institute.

 

https://www.timesofisrael.com/us-jewish-groups-pushed-meta-to-crack-down-on-hate-speech-now-its-reversing-course/