Palestinians criticise social media censorship over Sheikh Jarrah

Palestinians have slammed social media companies for shutting down their personal accounts and censoring content about attacks on residents and activists by Israeli forces and settlers in the occupied East Jerusalem neighbourhood of Sheikh Jarrah.

Over the past week, residents of Sheikh Jarrah, as well as Palestinian and international solidarity activists, have attended nightly vigils to support the Palestinian families under threat of forced displacement.

Israeli border police and forces have attacked the sit-ins using skunk water, tear gas, rubber-coated bullets and shock grenades. Dozens of Palestinians have been arrested.

Social media users from the ground and around the world have uploaded and shared video content and images about the attacks, using the hashtag in both English and Arabic #SaveSheikhJarrah.

Yet many have complained that their accounts have been censored, limited, or shut down altogether.

Instagram just let me know they might delete my account 🙂 because posting videos of state-sanctioned ethnic cleansing is against their community standards I guess 🙂

— mohammed kurd (@m7mdkurd) May 5, 2021

Instagram deleted my entire highlight of posts about what’s going on in Palestine so if you’re paying even the slightest amount of attention I need you to amplify our voices NOW.

— #SaveSheikhJarrah 🇵🇸 (@ahlam_m970) May 6, 2021

Instagram is deleting Palestinian stories on the ethnic cleansing happening in Sheikh Jarrah, as well as stories related to the murders of Indigenous women on Turtle Island.

This is silencing & censorship. These are the violent tactics of digital colonialism. #SaveSheikhJarrah

— sara m. saleh | سارة صالح #SaveSheikhJarrah (@SaraSalehOz) May 7, 2021

“Social media companies are silencing Palestinian voices while they’re fighting for their survival on the ground,” Marwa Fatafta, a policy member of the think tank Al Shabaka, told Al Jazeera.

“This is not a one-off incident, it’s a sequel to wider systematic censorship and discrimination targeting mainly those who are marginalised and oppressed, often at the behest of oppressive regimes.”

Censorship of Palestine across social media platforms highlights exactly why posting matters. A tweet or Instagram story from folks not on the ground is certainly not activism but clearly its impact cant be understated. Keep posting, sharing and retweeting #SaveSheikhJarrah

— Nooran A. (@nooranhamdan) May 6, 2021

Fatafta called on Facebook to “immediately stop this content carnage” and give an explanation to its users and the public for why it has taken down content.

Instagram is deleting Palestinian activists’ stories on the ethnic cleansing happening in Sheikh Jarrah. This is not a conspiracy, this is not a fluke. Social media companies have been & will always be antithetical to revolution & resistance. #SaveSheikhJarrah

— Dr. Yara Hawari د. يارا هواري (@yarahawari) May 6, 2021

Twitter administration suspended the NewPress English account.

Twitter is fighting the Palestinian content which exposes the crime of displacing Palestinians from Sheikh Jarrah neighbourhood, in Jerusalem.

This account will be the alternative of the NewPress English account. pic.twitter.com/ErWFg9IMkG

— NewPress (@newpress_en1) May 6, 2021

On Thursday night, at least 30 people were wounded and 15 arrested. Videos emerged showing Israeli settlers deliberately provoking a Palestinian communal Iftar meal set up outside one of the houses, including using pepper spray. Palestinians responded by throwing chairs at the settlers.

Later on, the deputy mayor of Jerusalem, Arieh King, is recorded addressing a physically disabled Palestinian man.

“Did they take the bullet out of your a**?” he says, standing next to far-right Israeli member of Knesset Itamar Ben Gvir. “It’s a pity it didn’t go in here,” he adds, pointing to his forehead.

Watch: Deputy Mayor of #Jerusalem, Arieh King, tell a Palestinian activist “it’s a pity” he wan’t shot in the head, last night in #SheikhJarrah pic.twitter.com/AgLEXc1nLW

— Oren Ziv (@OrenZiv1985) May 7, 2021

Social media collusion

The complicity between Israel and social media companies in regulating and censoring Palestinian content and accounts is well documented. Following a visit by a Facebook delegation in 2016, Israel’s justice minister at the time stated that Facebook, Google and YouTube were “complying with up to 95 percent of Israeli requests to delete content” – almost all of it Palestinian.

Palestinians have also highlighted in addition to cracking down on freedom of expression, the acquiescence of these social media companies to Israeli government requests of revealing users’ data have led to the arrests of hundreds of Palestinians in the past several years, mainly for their posts on Facebook. In contrast, Israelis do not face the same treatment.

7amleh, the Arab Center for Social Media Advancement, published a study in 2017 that found every 46 seconds Israelis post a racist or inciting comment against Palestinians and Arabs. Yet there has been little action taken against these accounts.

7amleh also offered to help users whose accounts have been affected and raised the issue to the social media companies, succeeding in reverting some of the content back online.

UPDATE; Based on last night activists’ reports, we manage to report to SM companies & we were able to take back some of the content, will continue on this until we end the digital discrimination against Pal.

Send us ur reports, username, URL & screenshots & we’d happy to escalate https://t.co/DZu9mF8HWM

— Mona shtaya (@Monashtayya) May 7, 2021

Sada Social, a Palestinian digital rights organisation, condemned Twitter’s administration for shutting down dozens of activists’ accounts.

“Sada Social considers the closure of these accounts as a punishment for activists and collusion between the Twitter administration and the Israeli security services, in order to reduce interaction with the Sheikh Jarrah cause,” a statement said.

Sada Social called for the need to reactivate the suspended accounts and provide a free space for all website users to express their views without discrimination.

Expulsion of Palestinian families

The Sheikh Jarrah cause has escalated over the past week despite the issue running for decades.

Jewish settler organisations filed a lawsuit in the 1970s claiming the area belonged to Jews originally, and seeking the expulsion of Palestinian families living there since 1956.

These families, refugees from the 1948 Nakba, eventually settled in Sheikh Jarrah under an agreement between Jordan and the UN refugee agency.

The Israeli district court ruled that four familes – al-Kurd, Iskafi, Qassim and Jaouni – must leave their homes for settlers to take over, or reach an agreement with these settler organisations by paying rent and recognising them as landlords.

The families refused and the court postponed their final verdict to May 10.

Several US lawmakers, including Rashida Tlaib, Cori Bush, and Marie Newman have spoken out against the attacks and imminent forced displacement in Sheikh Jarrah.

I know what it’s like to be brutalized for simply advocating for my own humanity. I stand in strong solidarity with our Palestinian siblings mobilizing to #SaveSheikhJarrah.@SecBlinken, I’m calling on you to condemn these attacks immediately. https://t.co/auq0rpQTOo

— Congresswoman Cori Bush (@RepCori) May 7, 2021

Palestinian families have every right to live in #SheikhJarrah.

I’m calling on the @StateDept to immediately condemn these violations of international law as Palestinians are forcibly being removed from their homes in East Jerusalem.#SaveSheikhJarrahpic.twitter.com/YyXrosu5ow

— Congresswoman Marie Newman (@RepMarieNewman) May 5, 2021