During the recent assault on Gaza, thousands of activists witnessed their posts deleted or their accounts restricted simply for documenting Israeli occupation crimes or expressing solidarity with the Palestinian people. This is far from an isolated phenomenon. In India, the government issued emergency orders to block dozens of accounts during the farmers’ protests, while human rights organizations documented the suspension of accounts belonging to large numbers of journalists and activists merely for criticizing government policies. Many felt helpless and furious, as their voices seemed to be deliberately pushed to the margins. These cases offer a clear illustration of what can today be called ‘soft digital repression.’
This form of repression does not always manifest as direct blocking or public arrest. It operates through invisible algorithms and digital systems, reshaping the digital space in ways that determine what reaches audiences and what gets marginalized. With the rapid expansion of artificial intelligence, these mechanisms have grown increasingly complex and far-reaching. This raises a pressing question: how does this system work, and how can it be confronted?
Digital Control and Voluntary Self-Surveillance
Large digital corporations collect vast amounts of data systematically, using artificial intelligence to analyze it and classify users according to behavioral patterns, intellectual orientations, and political inclinations. Through carefully designed algorithms, left-wing, progressive, and human rights content can be restricted without any need for direct deletion. From the user’s perspective, low engagement appears to stem from audience indifference, when in reality it may be the result of algorithmic mechanisms controlling the level of reach and visibility.
Many have experienced this firsthand: a significant post is written and reaches only a limited number of followers. Numerous studies have examined the phenomenon of the filter bubble, whereby users are gradually isolated within information environments that reinforce their pre-existing views while limiting their exposure to critical or alternative content. The 2021 Facebook leaks revealed internal discussions concerning content management and the influence of algorithms on the public sphere. The Brookings Institution has documented how digital platforms contribute to deepening political polarization and entrenching ideological dominance.
Over time, many users begin practicing what might be called ‘voluntary self-surveillance,’ imposing restrictions on themselves out of fear of bans or declining reach. This fear reshapes the nature of public discourse and gradually transforms the digital space into a more controlled environment, one that serves the interests of the forces dominating the digital infrastructure.
Digital Frustration
Through the constant flow of content, algorithms contribute to generating a sense of helplessness and loss of hope in the possibility of change, by repeatedly emphasizing the failures of progressive experiments and presenting the existing capitalist order as the only viable option. At the same time, individualism and personal success solutions are promoted as the primary path for addressing social problems, while consumer culture and individual achievement are presented as the practical alternative to collective action and political organization. The result is the isolation of individuals, the weakening of collective bonds, and the transformation of shared social concerns into personal responsibilities.
Digital Arrest and Digital Assassination
When covert surveillance or frustration proves insufficient, the system reaches more explicit levels of digital exclusion. Activists and journalists suddenly find their accounts suspended or blocked without prior warning, with these measures justified by generic phrases such as ‘violating community standards,’ even though the targeted content is in many cases documentation of human rights violations or war crimes.
In other cases, the situation reaches what can only be described as ‘digital assassination’: the complete erasure of the digital presence of individuals or entire institutions. The targeting of Palestinian content stands as one of the most contested examples, with human rights organizations and researchers having documented numerous instances of post deletions and account restrictions linked to coverage of violations, alongside a striking inconsistency in the application of content rules across different parties.
What Can Be Done? Alternatives for Left-Wing and Progressive Forces
If soft digital repression seeks to limit the potential for resistance, organization, and free expression, then confronting it begins with reconsidering technology itself as an arena of social and political struggle.
This requires pushing for greater transparency and democratic oversight of large digital corporations, and enacting legislation that protects privacy, criminalizes political surveillance, and mandates disclosure of algorithmic decision-making mechanisms.
The response cannot be limited to legislation alone. There is also a need to build digital left-wing internationals and cross-border solidarity networks that expose digital violations and defend rights and freedoms in the online space. Users and civil society institutions can also exert pressure on companies involved in developing or selling surveillance technologies used against activists, journalists, and dissidents.
It is equally important to support free and open-source software, and to develop alternative platforms that are more transparent and subject to community oversight, so that technology is used to protect rights, expose violations, and strengthen democratic participation.
Left-wing and progressive organizations should also develop their own digital tools, ranging from encryption and privacy protection technologies to awareness campaigns that expose the inner workings of algorithms and their political and social impact.
Technology Between Domination and Liberation
If the recurring experiences of Palestinian content restrictions, alongside other cases that have targeted left-wing, progressive, and human rights voices across different parts of the world, reveal an important dimension of the problem, they also confirm that alternatives are possible.
The issue is not about rejecting artificial intelligence or digital technology. The question concerns who owns this technology, how it is governed, and in whose interest it operates. Transforming artificial intelligence into a tool that serves society and whose use is subject to democratic oversight can open new horizons for participation, organization, and solidarity.
The internet is not merely a global marketplace for advertising and data. It is a social, political, and cultural space that can contribute to building new forms of collective action and struggle for social justice.
For this reason, the battle over technology remains part of the broader struggle against domination and exploitation, and for democracy, equality, freedom, and a socialist alternative. Returning the human being to the center of digital decision-making remains a fundamental condition for building a future in which technology serves society rather than the accumulation of capital.
