Alan MacLeod@AlanRMacLeod
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In light of Iran's allegations about WhatsApp sharing user location data with Israel, it's important to understand how deep Israeli intelligence penetration of big tech firms goes.
I've been working on this topic for 4 years. Here's what I found.
mintpressnews.com/revealed-forme
In light of Iran's allegations about WhatsApp sharing user location data with Israel, it's important to understand how deep Israeli intelligence penetration of big tech firms goes.
I've been working on this topic for 4 years. Here's what I found.
mintpressnews.com/revealed-forme
Firstly, Meta (WhatsApp's parent company) is filled with former intelligence agents from the Israeli Defense Force's elite cyberwarfare battalion, Unit 8200.
Chief among these is Emi Palmor, who sits on Meta's Oversight Board - a 21-person panel that ultimately dictates the direction of the company, deciding what content is allowed and what is disallowed.
Palmor is a former Israeli spy and later went on to become General Director of the Israeli Ministry of Justice. In this role, she directly oversaw the stripping away of Palestinian rights and created a so-called “Internet Referral Unit” which would find and aggressively push Facebook to delete Palestinian content on its platform that the Israeli government objected to.
Another important person at Meta is Eyal Klein, head of data science.
Klein spent six years in Unit 8200, rising to the rank of captain.
But what is Unit 8200?
Put simply, it is the centerpiece of Israel's hi-tech global spying, hacking, and cyberwarfare apparatus.
Responsible for covert operations, spying, surveillance and cyberwarfare, since October 7, 2023, the group has been at the forefront of the world’s attention. It is widely identified as the organization behind the infamous pager attack on Lebanon, which left at least nine dead and around 3,000 people injured.
Unit 8200 has also constructed an artificial intelligence-powered kill list for Gaza, suggesting tens of thousands of individuals (including women and children) for assassination. This software was the primary targeting mechanism the IDF used in the early months of its attack on the densely populated strip.
Using gigantic amounts of data compiled on Palestinians by tracking their every move through face recognition cameras monitoring their calls, messages, emails and personal data, Unit 8200 has created a dystopian dragnet that it uses to surveil, harass and suppress Palestinians.
Unit 8200 compiles dossiers on every Palestinian, including their medical history, sex lives and search histories, so that this information can be used for extortion or blackmail later. If, for example, an individual is cheating on their spouse, desperately needs a medical operation, or is secretly homosexual, this can be used as leverage to turn civilians into informants and spies for Israel. One former Unit 8200 operative said that as part of his training, he was assigned to memorize different Arabic words for “gay” so that he could listen out for them in conversations.
Unit 8200 operatives have gone on to create some of the world’s most downloaded apps and many of the most infamous spying programs, including Pegasus, which was used to surveil tens of thousands of activists, journalists, and politicians around the world.
The Israeli government authorized the sale of Pegasus to the Central Intelligence Agency, as well as some of the most authoritarian governments on the planet. This included Saudi Arabia, who used the software to spy on Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi before he was assassinated by Saudi agents in Türkiye.
That is why it is so inappropriate for big tech companies to hire Unit 8200 agents.
Among those companies is Google.
My investigation revealed at least 99 former Unit 8200 spies in Google's ranks.
One notable example is Google's Head of Strategy and Operations, Gavriel Goidel.
Between 2010 and 2016, Goidel served in Unit 8200, rising to become Head of Learning at the organization, leading a large team of operatives who sifted through intelligence data to “understand patterns of hostile activists”, in his own words, transmitting that information to superiors. Whether this included any of the over 1000 Gazan civilians Israel killed during their 2014 bombardment of Gaza is unknown.
mintpressnews.com/revealed-forme
Perhaps more alarmingly, Microsoft appears to be actively recruiting from the regiment, hiring people straight from Unit 8200 ranks, without even a career break in between.
My investigation found at least 166 former Unit 8200 agents working for Microsoft.
mintpressnews.com/revealed-forme
Even TikTok, long slammed as a pro-Hamas, anti-Israel platform, has recently begun hiring former Unit 8200 agents to run its affairs.
Reut Medalion is a particularly notable case in point.
Medalion enjoyed a long career at Unit 8200, serving as an intelligence commander and later becoming head of its cybersecurity operations team. In the wake of Israel’s attack on Gaza, she moved to New York City to work as a global incident manager for TikTok’s trust and safety division. Considering the events going on in the world at the time, it is fair to wonder with what sorts of “global incidents” is she helping TikTok.
One also has to wonder what sort of pressures TikTok is under, and if they relate at all to hires like these.
For the full investigation into TikTok's ties to Unit 8200, see here:
mintpressnews.com/288710-tiktok-
If this wasn't bad enough, Unit 8200 agents could also be writing your news about the Middle East.
My investigation uncovered a number of Israeli spies working in America's top newsrooms.
mintpressnews.com/revealed-israe
A case in point is Barak Ravid, who, last year, won the prestigious White House Press Correspondents’ Award “for overall excellence in White House coverage”—one of the highest awards in American journalism.
There's one problem: Ravid is an Israeli spy. Or at least he was. And it was only in 2023 that he announced he was no longer serving in Unit 8200's reserve forces.
Ravid has been a key tool in the laundering of Israeli and US government talking points into the media.
He also doesn't hide his open disgust for Palestinians, and has retweeted posts calling them "PaliNazis", as @☀️👀 explores here:
x.com/zei_squirrel/s
Other former Unit 8200 spies who went on to have influential media careers include Shachar Peled and Tal Heinrich, who CNN hired to produce political news (including about 
/
) for American audiences.
Heinrich left CNN and is now the official spokesperson of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, lol.
/) for American audiences.
Heinrich left CNN and is now the official spokesperson of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, lol.
Sticking with CNN for a second, don't you think it is crazy that their current Middle East reporter was an official IDF spokesperson?
How blatant do you want to be?
Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro has also labeled WhatsApp a spying tool for Western nations, and suggested deleting Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp from your devices.
Facebook is also teeming with CIA agents.
My investigation found dozens of top spooks employed in some of the most politically sensitive positions at the platform, effectively deciding what billions see (and don't see) in their newsfeeds.
mintpressnews.com/meet-ex-cia-ag
You'd never guess from this official FB interview with its Head of Content Regulation that this guy was one of the highest ranking members of the CIA
In 2019, Aaron Berman left his position at the CIA to become a top Facebook manager, despite zero relevant qualifications
It is a similar story on Reddit, where one day in 2017, the company hired Jessica Ashooh to become its Director of Policy, giving her huge control over what was allowed on the platform, and what would be suppressed.
To say the decision was a surprise is a huge understatement, as Ashooh had no relevant qualifications and expertise.
In fact, her primary achievement before that was as a high government official. In May 2017, she suddenly quit her job at the Deputy Director of the Atlantic Council (NATO) Middle East Task Force. There, she had been overseeing the US' dirty war in Syria, which led to the overthrow of Bashar Al-Assad and the founder and head of Al-Qaeda in Syria becoming president.
She was then parachuted into Reddit, and rapidly changed the direction of the site.
My investigation:
mintpressnews.com/jessica-ashooh
The bottom line in all this is social media apps and communications devices are not neutral, but massive, silent battlegrounds.
We give these apps incredible amounts of our data, and we have to be extremely wary of what it is being used for.
(If you've liked this thread, drop me a follow, a subscription, or just like and share the links provided).
mintpressnews.com/revealed-forme
Alan MacLeod
@AlanRMacLeod
Senior Staff Writer/Podcast Producer, @MintPressNews. I mostly tweet about US/Mid East & Lat Am. politics, but complaining about corporate media is my passion.
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