One of the most prominent pro-Palestine accounts, with over 6 million followers on Instagram, has been locked by Meta and is currently inaccessible to followers.
The account, Eye on Palestine (@eye.on.palestine), and its official backup (@eye.on.palestine2) were both unavailable on the app as of Wednesday. The backup account was created to protect the original page and fight against shadowbanning, a problem Instagram users have said they've faced while sharing pro-Palestine content since the beginning of the Israel-Hamas conflict.
When searched for, the pages displayed the words: "Sorry, this page isn't available."
Meta told Mashable in a statement that the account was locked for security reasons and can now be reactivated by its owner(s): "These accounts were initially locked for security reasons after signs of compromise. We’ve helped the account owners regain access and they can now reactivate their account."
At the time of writing, both accounts are still not available.
Earlier today, Andy Stone, communications director at Meta, reposted a message on X from journalist Yashar Ali, who shared Meta's statement regarding the situation. Ali wrote that he received a statement from Meta, also explaining that the accounts were "initially locked for security reasons after signs of compromise." Meta said it did not disable these accounts due to "any content they were sharing."
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The Eye on Palestine account was known for sharing invaluable first-hand accounts of the situation in Gaza.
While Meta says that the Eye on Palestine account, alongside several others, has not been removed for its sentiments, many social media users are skeptical. This is the latest incident of alleged censorship and bias against pro-Palestine messages on Meta's platforms.
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This week, the same account on X has been removed. The account was previously active as of Oct. 13.
Platforms have faced several accusations of suppressing stories coming out of Gaza and from pro-Palestine voices. As reported by Mashable, dozens of Instagram users said they faced low visibility and censorship when sharing content about the humanitarian crisis in Gaza or messages expressly supporting Palestine. Some users told Mashable that links aimed at donating to Gaza were broken; others complained of fewer than ten views on a Story that had been uploaded for hours. Accounts have been locked, and posts have been deleted.
Since then, many others have reported moments of digital suppression and outright bias. Following an explosion in the Gaza Strip’s al-Ahli Hospital, users found their posts about civilian casualties were removed from Instagram and Facebook for violating their politics on "nudity or sexual activity". In another instance, Instagram apologized for mistranslating people's bios to include the word "terrorist", when said bios featured Arabic words and/or the Palestinian flag.
