Big Tech and the risk of Genocide in Gaza

Big Tech and the risk of genocide in Gaza: what are companies doing?

The war in Gaza is one of the deadliest and most destructive wars in recent history — creating a “hell on Earth.” In just over a year, more women and children have been killed by the Israeli military than in any other conflict over the past two decades. On average, 10 children a day lose one or both legs. More than 902 entire families have been obliterated; at least 17,000 children have been orphaned; and 90 percent of the population has been displaced, some as many as 10 times. With 80 percent of its buildings destroyed, there are no safe places left to go inside Gaza, and no escape possible beyond its borders. In January 2024, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) determined that Palestinians in Gaza have plausible rights to be protected from genocide — and concluded that those rights are at real and imminent risk of irreparable damage.

Technology is playing a central role in enabling the relentless mass slaughter and destruction unleashed in Gaza. From supplying the dystopian AI systems used to automate the killing and bombing, to facilitating the spread of state-sponsored disinformation and online incitement to violence and war crimes, Big Tech is deeply embroiled in this brutal war. However, the impunity with which Israeli authorities have been allowed to wage this war has also served to shield technology companies from scrutiny. Not only have companies failed to uphold their human rights commitments in times of war, they have also dismissed, ignored, and even punished dissenting voices among their own ranks, civil society, and the public flagging their possible complicity in what the UN’s top independent expert on Palestine describes as an unfolding genocide.

This post interrogates how technology companies can be potentially facilitating or contributing to an endless list of egregious violations of international law, including the crime of genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes, currently under investigation by the ICJ and the International Criminal Court (ICC). We also provide companies with recommendations to avoid potential complicity in such violations.

Who may be profiteering from war crimes, collective punishment, and indiscriminate violence?

Below, we highlight technology companies that have provided the Israeli army with services and tools, such as cloud computing services and artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities, which may have been used in atrocity crimes in Gaza. This includes companies that have failed to take sufficient action to prevent the proliferation of incitement to violence and genocidal rhetoric on their platforms — linked to offline violence — or that have censored marginalized voices protesting the war.  While we focus on Alphabet’s Google, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft, and Meta, the list is not exhaustive; other major tech-sector actors are potentially contributing to serious international crimes in Gaza, and they should also be taking urgent action to meet their human rights obligations.

Meta

Google

Amazon Web Services (AWS)

Microsoft

#NoTechForGenocide: corporate complicity in Gaza’s plight

Companies have a responsibility to respect human rights wherever they operate. The aforementioned UN Guiding Principles, to which all of the companies listed above have publicly subscribed, demand that companies also respect international humanitarian law in situations of armed conflict. This reflects the heightened risk of companies becoming complicit, whether inadvertently or deliberately, in gross human rights abuses or international crimes committed by other actors, such as the military or warring parties. 

Companies may be directly linked to the commission of a crime during an armed conflict if they provide direct support to the perpetrator, including through providing military, logistical, intelligence, or financial assistance. In some cases, companies, and their leaders or managers, could be held liable even if the company did not participate in the crime or did not intend to support it. As the Office of the High Commissioner on Human Rights (OHCHR) has noted, companies “should treat this risk in the same manner as the risk of involvement in a serious crime, whether or not it is clear that they would be held legally liable.” 

These risks are acute in Gaza, given the plausible risk of genocide. An expert legal opinion commissioned by Al-Haq and SOMO to examine the legal consequences of the ICJ’s order for states and corporations suggests that, given the services they provide are essential for the Israeli army’s operations, tech companies may find they are directly contributing to violations of international humanitarian law and the commission of genocidal acts against Palestinians in Gaza. 

The legal analysis notes that, “International criminal law suggests that direct complicity requires intentional participation, but not necessarily an intention to do harm, only knowledge of foreseeable harmful effects. Tech companies should be on notice in light of the ICJ orders, as well as the arrest warrants requested by the ICC Prosecutor for the Israeli Prime Minister and Minister of Defense. These warrants cover charges of crimes against humanity of extermination and persecution, and the war crimes of starvation, wilful killing, and causing great suffering or serious injury to body or health. 

The technology and social media companies partnering with the Israeli government face a particularly salient risk of aiding or abetting these crimes, in addition to the crime of genocide. Direct and public incitement to commit genocide is also a crime under international law, and giving Israeli officials, media, and others a platform to incite genocide, while failing to remove such content, may make social media platforms complicit. A similar argument can be made regarding the targeted ads used by Israel to justify its war in Gaza, which arguably constituted propaganda aimed at dehumanizing an entire group of people.

What should companies do now?

The prohibition to commit genocide is a jus cogens norm from which no state, or in some jurisdictions, no company, can derogate. Given the serious risks, companies, their investors, and the states they are domiciled in must urgently take the following actions:

  • Comply with the UN calls for a full arms embargo and cease the sale and transfer of surveillance technologies and dual use items.  In April 2024, the UN Human Rights Council adopted a resolution condemning the use of AI to “aid military decision-making that may contribute to the commission of international crimes,” as well as calling for an arms embargo, and for all states “to refrain, in accordance with international norms and standards, from the export, sale or transfer of surveillance goods and technologies and less-lethal weapons, including ‘dual-use’ items, when they assess that there are reasonable grounds to suspect that such goods, technologies or weapons might be used to violate or abuse human rights.”  Similarly, UN human rights experts have issued repeated calls to states and investors for a full arms embargo on Israel.
  • Withdraw or suspend business relationships, economic ties, and trade agreements with Israel that may contribute to its unlawful presence and apartheid regime in the occupied Palestinian territory. In light of the ICJ’s advisory opinion of the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories as illegal, states, companies should also avoid providing any aid or assistance that may help maintain the occupation. A subsequent UN General Assembly resolution mandates that states abstain from entering into economic, investment, or trade dealings with Israel that may help entrench its unlawful presence in the occupied territories.
  • Conduct conflict-sensitive and heightened human rights due diligence regarding companies’ policies, operations and supply chains. Tech companies must urgently assess how their products and business ties are exacerbating the conflict in Gaza, contributing to or directly linked to violations of international law and develop clear plans for mitigation. As the UN Guiding Principles make it clear, companies must take the risks of contributing to gross human rights abuses in conflict zones as a “legal compliance issue.”
  • Assess responsible exit strategies and cease activities that may contribute directly or indirectly to ongoing crimes. When companies cannot influence the human rights situation through their business ties or mitigate contributing to the ongoing crimes in Gaza,  they should consider responsibly disengaging from or exiting the market. Tech companies that have direct business relations with the Israeli authorities or state-owned enterprises face salient risks of possibly facilitating, abetting, or aiding the crime of genocide and other atrocity crimes currently under investigation.