Zoom appoints Janet Napolitano to Board of Directors

Zoom announced on Monday that Janet Napolitano has joined its Board of Directors.

“Zoom has immense capacity as a communication service provider,” said Napolitano. “I’m excited about its future and I’m excited to join its Board.”

Napolitano is a former Attorney General of Arizona and former Governor of Arizona. More recently, she was President of the University of California system from 2013 to 2020.

Why does it matter?

In 2015, in an interview on NPR, when Napolitano was the University of California President, she discussed the campus protests against Israel’s occupation of the West Bank, which some Jewish students are calling “anti-Semitic”.

She said she personally agrees with the U.S. State Department’s definition of anti-Semitism, which says that denying Israel’s right to exist is anti-Semitic.

“I have my own personal view, and my personal view is that we should adopt the State Department’s definition,” Napolitano stated.

Last month, Zoom faced a barrage of criticism online after cancelling a webinar featuring Palestinian activist and former plane hijacker Leila Khaled, and many people went on social media to criticise Zoom for censoring content and limiting free speech.

The event, titled “Whose Narratives? Gender, Justice and Resistance”, was sponsored by San Francisco State University (SFSU).

Therefore, Zoom said in a statement released after cancelling the event that in the light of the
“speaker’s reported affiliation or membership in a US designated foreign terrorist organisation, and SFSU’s inability to confirm otherwise, Zoom determined the meeting is in violation of Zoom’s Terms of Service,” telling SFSU they may not use Zoom for this particular event.

This event was not the only or the latest example of platforms censoring Palestinian content.

Last month, Twitter suspended more than 300 Palestinian and pro-Palestine activists accounts under the pretext of “violating Twitter rules.”

Facebook also has shut down the accounts and pages of dozens of Palestinian journalists and activists on the Israeli-supplied pretext that criticism of Israel and its crimes against Palestinians constitute “incitement.”

By appointing Janet Napolitano as Zoom’s Board of Directors, Palestinians ask if censoring the Palestinian content is going to be increased or it will stay as it’s, especially with Napolitano’s agreement with the U.S. State Department’s definition of anti-Semitism.

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