Jessica Ashooh spent years at the Atlantic Council, the organizational brains of NATO. There, she crafted its Middle East policy.
Ashooh spent much of her time liasing with "moderate rebels" in Syria and devising ways to overthrow the Assad government.
Ashooh has virtually zero relevant experience for a social media company.
But her hire did coincide with a number of other eyebrow-raising moves that saw national security officials take key positions at major social media companies.
Ashooh worked for the govt of UAE, advising them on their Syria policy at exactly the same time that the Emiratis were funnelling weapons and money to al-Qaeda, al-Nusra and ISIS fighters there. 👁️
Here's Joe Biden explaining what the UAE's role was in Syria at the time.
Her opposition to authoritarians in 🇮🇷 or 🇸🇾 would be more credible if she didn't work for the UAE and wax lyrical about how progressive and forward thinking the Saudi govt is. Her stated dream job is US Ambassador to Saudi. For now, she'll have to settle for controlling Reddit
The Atlantic Council has also partnered with Facebook, advising them on how to curate the news feeds of nearly 3 billion people. Facebook's head of intelligence is also NATO's former press officer.
Considering that the Atlantic Council's board of directors includes Henry Kissinger, dozens of generals, Bush-era planners like C.Powell and C. Rice, and 7 ex-CIA bosses, the AC controlling Facebook and Reddit is tantamount to state censorship on a global level.
A lot of people who aren't on Reddit underestimate its size. It is the 8th largest website in the world by traffic, with 1.2 billion visits per month. Its traffic is 3x Fox News and 5x the New York Times. It's 1.5 times the size of Twitter.
Thread 🧵: I'm seeing a lot of US politicians express outrage at the Iranian strike on an Israeli hospital, so I thought I'd fill you all in on the shocking history of the US purposely bombing hospitals around the world.
In March, Trump carried out 14 separate attacks against the Al Rasool Al-Azam Oncology Hospital in Saada, Yemen, turning it into rubble.
The newly built Al Rasool Al-Azam Hospital was the centerpiece of the region’s healthcare network. Costing over $7.5 million, the center provided crucial treatment to hundreds of cancer patients who previously went without any care at all or faced an eight-and-a-half-hour round trip to the capital, Sanaa, for therapy.
The Anti-Cancer Fund, a local government medical organization, described the events as a clear “war crime.”
“These attacks are not just airstrikes, but systematic executions, intended to eliminate hope and wipe out life amid a suffocating blockade,” it said in a statement.
These images give a taste of what repeated US bombardment did to it.
Syria 🇸🇾
In 2017, on Trump's orders, US forces repeatedly bombed the National Hospital in Raqqa, Syria, carrying out 20 separate attacks against the building, including using white phosphorous munitions.
A highly controversial and widely-banned weapon, white phosphorous instantly ignites upon contact with oxygen, sticks to clothes and skin, and burns at an extremely high temperature. It cannot be extinguished by water, leaving those affected to suffer excruciating – and deadly – injuries.
At least 30 civilians were killed, some likely due to the effects of the white phosphorous, which causes respiratory damage and organ failure.
Thread🧵 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.
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.