The ongoing war on Gaza, one of the deadliest military assaults in history, has been accompanied by extreme applications of digital technologies to warfare. This feeds into the many layers of cybercontrol to which Palestine, a land under military and settler occupation, has long been subjected. Today we are joined by Fabio Cristiano to explore data violence in the ongoing Israeli assault, and the multiple implications it has in the space of human and digital rights.

Fabio Cristiano is Assistant Professor in Conflict Studies at Utrecht University. His research explores the making of international conflict in/through cyberspace, focusing primarily on questions related to automation and non-human agency (AI); violence; socio-technical knowledge production; sovereignty/territoriality; and digital rights. He is an Associate Fellow of The Hague Program on International Cybersecurity and the lead editor of Artificial Intelligence and International Conflict in Cyberspace (Routledge, 2023) and Hybridity, Conflict, and the Global Politics of Cybersecurity (Rowman & Littlefield, 2023).

Resources:

• Cristiano, F., & Distretti, E. (2021). Toward an Aesthetics by Algorithms—Palestinian Cyber and Digital Spaces at the Threshold of (In) visibility. The Aesthetics and Politics of the Online Self: A Savage Journey into the Heart of Digital Cultures, https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-030-65497-9_10 .
• Cristiano, F. (2019). Deterritorializing cyber security and warfare in Palestine: Hackers, sovereignty, and the National Cyberspace as normative. CyberOrient, https://anthrosource.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/j.cyo2.20191301.0002.
• Cristiano, F. (2019). Internet access as human right: a dystopian critique from the occupied Palestinian territory. Springer International Publishing, https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-319-91770-2_12 .