"Wix ‘addressing’ internal messages on Israel-Hamas conflict"

Messages in an internal company discussion, first reported by The Irish Times in recent days, encouraged employees to “show Westernity” in social media posts backing Israel, as “unlike the Gazans, we look and live like Europeans or Americans”.

The messages were posted in an internal Slack channel called “supporting-Israel-narrative”, set up in response to Hamas’s October 7th attacks in southern Israel, which killed 1,400 people and sparked the current conflict.

The channel invited employees to “join a company initiative to create videos and creative campaigns”, to “support Israel’s narrative”.

One post advised staff to avoid focusing on numbers when posting about attacks on Israelis, as “the number of deaths and bombings in Gaza will be significantly higher”...

In an email on Friday, Sara Smith, head of the Dublin office, said Wix had removed “any non-work content” from its Slack channels, other than messages of support for Israeli colleagues.

“We’re working actively on additional steps to ensure that going forward this type of content doesn’t end up in work channels & if it does, for it to be proactively removed,” she wrote.

“We really appreciate all of the feedback we have received and will do our best to continue addressing it,” she said.

The company did not respond to requests for comment on the internal correspondence to staff.

In a recent Slack post a manager announced the company wide “supporting-Israel-narrative” channel was being shut down.

At the start of the week Wix dismissed one of its Irish employees, Courtney Carey (26), after she publicly criticised Israel.

In posts on LinkedIn, Ms Carey described Israel as a “terrorist state” and criticised the “indiscriminate” bombing of Gaza...

In a statement, Nir Zohar, Wix president and chief operations officer, said her comments had been “unfathomable, unexplainable and unacceptable”.

The company’s decision to sack Ms Carey was criticised by Taoiseach Leo Varadkar, Tánaiste Micheál Martin, as well as People Before Profit and Solidarity...

On Friday a number of activists from the group Dublin for Gaza and People Before Profit held a protest outside Wix’s Dublin office, over the company’s decision to fire Ms Carey.