178 violations against Palestinian content during June 2021, says NGO
Sada Social Center, a Palestinian digital rights organisation specializes in protecting Palestinian narratives on social media platforms, documented more than 178 violations against Palestinian content during June 2021.
Sada Social said that these violations were distributed among the majority of global social media platforms.
The rate of violations against Palestinian content increased remarkably and escalated with the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood uprising, events of occupied Jerusalem, including Israel’s demolitions, expulsion and forced displacement of Palestinians, and the Israeli aggression on Gaza.
The Sada Social Center team documented more than 178 violations during June, as Twitter topped the list with 93 violations, followed by Facebook with 74 violations, Instagram with 9 violations, TikTok with one violation and one violation on YouTube.
These violations also varied between the complete ban and suspension of some features, the complete closure of accounts or pages, or the restriction of publications or lives and lowering reach levels.
Sada said over 65 percent of the total violations were against news networks and journalists.
The applications deleted publications and stories, restricted accounts, and banned live broadcasts for a number of Palestinian journalists and activists, in conjunction with the intensity of publishing to follow up on-field events and the Israeli occupation’s assault on Jerusalem and Al-Aqsa Mosque and the aggression on Gaza.
Twitter violations came in deletion of hundreds of Palestinian and Arab accounts after tweeting and posting solidarity content with ongoing Palestinian matters, and the most prominent of which was the limitation of hashtags and posts published about the Sheikh Jarrah and Silwan neighborhoods in Jerusalem, and others about the crimes of the occupation and the Palestinian narrative in Gaza.
The center said it participated in a campaign under the title “End Digital Execution”, which aimed to share stories, posts, and pictures which Facebook had deleted or restricted its owner accounts.
It is noteworthy that Sada Social Center is a voluntary youth initiative launched in 2017 to protect Palestinian digital content.
