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Israel's government on Monday was pressing ahead with a contentious plan to overhaul the country's legal system, despite an unprecedented uproar that has included mass protests, warnings from military and business leaders and calls for restraint by the United States. Thousands of demonstrators were expected to gather outside the parliament, or Knesset, for a second straight week to rally against the plan as lawmakers prepared to hold an initial vote. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his allies, a collection of ultra-religious and ultranationalist lawmakers, say the plan is meant to fix a system that has given the courts and government legal advisers too much say in how legislation is crafted and decisions are made. Critics say it will upend the country's system of checks and balances and concentrate power in the hands of the prime minister. They also say that Netanyahu, who is on trial for a series of corruption charges, has a conflict of interest. The standoff has plunged Isr
Tens of thousands of Israelis gathered in central Tel Aviv on Saturday night to protest plans by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's new government to overhaul the legal system and weaken the Supreme Court a step that critics say will destroy the country's democratic system of checks and balances. The protest presented an early challenge to Netanyahu and his ultranationalist national security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, who has ordered police to take tough action if protesters block roads or display Palestinian flags. Israeli media, citing police, said the crowd at Tel Aviv's Habima Square swelled to at least 80,000 people, despite cool, rainy weather. Protesters, many covered by umbrellas, held Israeli flags and signs saying Criminal Government," The End of Democracy and other slogans. They are trying to destroy the checks and balances of the Israeli democracy. This will not work, said Asaf Steinberg, a protester from the Tel Aviv suburb of Herzliya. And we will fight until the ver
Microblogging platform Twitter uses an algorithm that amplifies the reach of politically right-leaning sources more than that of politically left-leaning sources, suggested a study.Twitter uses the algorithm to personalize the content its users see on their home timelines.Cambridge University professor Ferenc Huszar and his colleagues quantified whether Twitter's algorithm amplifies left-leaning or right-leaning content using a randomized control group of nearly two million daily active Twitter users chosen by the platform to receive content in reverse-chronological order without personalization and a treatment group representing 4 per cent of all other accounts with personalized timelines.The authors analyzed the algorithmic amplification effect on tweets made by 3,634 elected politicians from major political parties in seven countries that are highly represented on Twitter.The authors also measured the algorithmic amplification of 6.2 million political news articles shared in the ...