Web Summit, a major event in the tech sector, has already been tainted by scandal, and the scandalous activity continues. A video created in support of Israel, about Web Summit and the October 7 massacre by Hamas, have been taken down from X (formerly known as Twitter). X removed the videos in response to Web Summit’s complaints about copyright infringement, as the video contained a few seconds worth of clips from Web Summit’s website.
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The background to this story is that the Web Summit event, to be held in Lisbon in November, saw some of the largest companies pull out in response to quotes by Web Summit’s CEO, Paddy Cosgrove. In October, Cosgrove had posted that he was “shocked at the rhetoric and actions of so many Western leaders & governments” in support of Israel. He went on to write, “War crimes are war crimes even when committed by allies, and should be called out for what they are.” In protest, tech and AI companies such as Alphabet (GOOGL), Intel (INTC) and Meta (META), in addition to some of the event’s headliners, announced their plans to boycott the event.
Cosgrove ultimately resigned as CEO of Web Summit, and a new CEO, Katherine Maher, was appointed in his stead. When appointed, Maher said, “Web Summit’s role as a place for connection and conversation is more urgent now than ever.” Now, according to Ron Harnevo, creator of the video, Web Summit’s actions belie Maher’s statements. The video was taken down from his X account, as well as from the X account of hedge fund manager Bill Ackman, among others.
Harnevo wrote on LinkedIn, “How come the company, which stated it’ll make the right changes, is aggressively trying the take down our video from every social platform out there? What happened to its “two sided liberalism” approach? What happened to free speech?”
He continued by accusing Web Summit of “chasing every URL of our video in an attempt to shut our mouth and censor a video that legitimately criticize a behaviour they already “apologized” for!” He is appealing to Maher and the company to cease their legal actions and allow the video to be displayed across social media platforms. Note that the video is still available for viewing on LinkedIn.
