Instagram is suspending accounts and Shadowbanning Posts supporting Palestine
Instagram users claim that their posts on Gaza are being shadowbanned by the Meta-owned social media platform.
Instagram is suspending accounts and Shadowbanning Posts supporting Palestine, it emerged on Sunday.
An Instagram shadowban refers to the act of hiding or restricting a user’s content without informing the user that it’s happening.
A number of Instagram users took to X-platform to claim that their posts on Gaza are being shadowbanned by the Meta-owned social media platform.
According to Muslim figures, activists, and celebrities claimed that their posts about the plight of Palestinians are censored by the social media platform.
After posting an Instagram story about the war in Gaza yesterday, my account was shadowbanned. Many colleagues and journalists friends have reported the same. It’s an extraordinary threat to the flow of information and credible journalism about an unprecedented war…
— Azmat Khan (@AzmatZahra) October 15, 2023
While many others claimed that their followers are being blocked from commenting and sharing, several users alleged that the views on their Instagram’s ‘stories’ on Gaza and Palestine had drastically dropped compared to other posts.
you guys arent kidding with the crazy meta/instagram shadowban.. from 100 to 20??? with only a few minutes span pic.twitter.com/QhCeIlr8qL
— Nada☆ندى 🇵🇸🇵🇸🇵🇸 (@katretel_nada) October 14, 2023
so let us (people outside palestine) be their voice and spread their stories and history, as they don’t have the power or ability to do that right now.
they’re trying to shadowban us but we’re already ahead of them and let’s try to keep it this way#TheRealImage #GazaGenocide https://t.co/U0b2ruwQUa pic.twitter.com/VaHR85w36d— reemi (@blauessi) October 15, 2023
i still cant wrap my head around the fact that instagram will shadowban me from posting whats actually happening in palestine lol
— n (@needynadz) October 14, 2023
Yes it's happening, I just reposted some posts of other pages, highlighting what's happening in Palestine and now my stories are shadowbanned
— Jas0n Bourne (@jas0nsays) October 14, 2023
This is not the first time.
Last year, top American model Bella Hadid accused Instagram of shadow-banning her pro-Palestine content.
“My Instagram has disabled me from posting on my story – pretty much only when it is Palestine-based. I’m going to assume,” Bella Hadid said in her stories. “When I post about Palestine I get immediately shadow-banned and almost one million less of you see my stories and posts.”
Hadid is not the first to claim digital censorship in regard to the Israeli-Palestinian crisis. Last year, following the Israeli bombing of the Gaza Strip, a number of pro-Palestine activists claimed their content was being shadow-banned on Facebook and Instagram.
