OUR TIMELINE*
*This timeline of Meta censorship is not exhaustive or comprehensive because Meta does not consistently indicate to Samidoun when our posted content and accounts are restricted, removed, or banned.
Wednesday, April 10th: Samidoun Göteborg and Samidoun Paris Banlieue accounts suspended; Samidoun Network’s account had posts taken down and account features limited (shadow-banned: “account can’t be shown to non-followers”), Samidoun NY/NJ account shadow-banned (“account can’t be shown to non-followers”) and posts taken down, Samidoun Brussels had posts taken down; Within a few days of this Samidoun Seattle and Samidoun Toronto had posts taken down too, the latter without notification.
Monday, April 29th: Samidoun Network international account is suspended and shortly after posting about this suspension, the Samidoun NY/NJ account is also suspended indefinitely and cannot create new accounts, attempts have resulted in immediate suspensions even though content is not posted yet.
Monday, June 3rd: Samidoun Netherland’s Instagram account is banned.
Tuesday, June 4th: Samidoun Paris has three separate posts taken down citing that they are about “dangerous individuals and organizations”. Each post was about a different figure of the Palestinian Resistance Khalida Jarrar, Ahmad Sa’adat, and Khader Adnan.
Wednesday, June 5th: Victory to the Intifada, a Britain-based Samidoun affiliate and campaign established in 2000, had their account restricted based on allegations of violating Instagram community standards. No evidence was provided. On this same day, Samidoun Toronto’s Instagram page had content removed citing “dangerous individuals and organizations.” The posts removed included photographs of Hamas’ text “Our Narrative”.
Monday, June 10th: Samidoun Toronto has yet another post removed citing their Community Guidelines’ on “dangerous individuals and organizations.”
Saturday, June 15th: Samidoun Albuquerque’s Instagram account is suspended.
Friday, June 21st: Samidoun Manchester’s Instagram account is suspended.
META CENSORSHIP OF SAMIDOUN NETWORK
In yet another cowardly attempt to suppress the global Palestinian solidarity movement, Meta indefinitely suspended Samidoun Network’s primary Instagram account at 28,000 followers. This suspension comes just weeks after Samidoun chapters across the world began facing similar censorship against their accounts. Meta continues to limit our reach by removing our posts without warning, banning us from features like collaborative posting and live-streaming, restricting who can follow our accounts, and algorithmically suppressing who can see our posts.
Meta’s targeting of Samidoun Network does not operate in isolation. It is the culmination of their continued censorship of anything that challenges the Zionist occupation it protects. (For example, the very large Instagram account of Within Our Lifetime was previously targeted and WOL has been unable to use the platform for months, despite organizing many massive demonstrations in New York City.) Meta’s material interest in protecting Zionist settler-colonialism and imperialist genocide sharply contradicts Samidoun’s global solidarity with Palestinian prisoners and the Resistance. As our solidarity escalates, Meta’s censorship desperately intensifies.
Beginning in April, shadow-banning, post and story removal, account restrictions, and suspensions on Instagram became commonplace for Samidoun chapters globally. Meta limited more and more of our accounts in their online reach and presence, particularly chapters with a large and active follower base, with their censorship practices culminating in the indefinite suspension of our international account. Evidently, local chapter accounts were targeted ahead of our primary international account in a strategic attempt at preventing and suppressing followers of local chapters from finding any new international accounts that would re-emerge. Immediately before the suspension of our international account, Samidoun Network’s account engagement increased exponentially after posting an English translation of the statement of solidarity from the Student Frameworks Secretariat – Gaza addressed to the student intifada of the imperial core. It is Samidoun’s championing of the Palestinian Resistance and their leaders that Meta often cites as the reasoning behind removing our content. Therefore, for us to platform a direct message from students blocs of the united Resistance to students of the West, the latter primarily using social media as a tool for mobilization at encampments, Meta naturally saw this as a threat to their own interests.
Meta’s targeted censorship of Samidoun comes as no surprise considering their relentless silencing of organizations and individuals who dare to stand up against the Zionist project it propagates and protects. Meta not only targets those who denounce Zionism on their platform, but is itself an active participant in the Zionist settler-colonial project. In 2015, the Zionist occupation established a cyber unit in an attempt to globally repress any and all anti-Zionist voices. The cyber unit attempts to accomplish this through collaboration with Meta and other media corporations. The cyber unit manually sends takedown requests to Meta, and Meta largely complies. In 2019, Meta complied with 90% of the occupation’s 20,000 requests to censor anti-Zionist voices. Shortly after Operation Al-Aqsa Flood, Meta once again complied with 90% of the occupation’s over 2,000 requests.
Meta’s participation in Zionist settler-colonialism also manifests in their internal hiring practices. The tech corporation frequently hires former members of the occupation government into high-level positions. This includes Meta’s hiring of Emi Palmor, former advisor to Benjamin Netanyahu, to Meta’s so-called independent oversight board, which Mark Zuckerberg calls “Meta’s supreme court”. The independent oversight board’s role is to dictate what content is suppressed and removed on Meta’s platforms. Meta also hires a significant number of former agents from the IOF’s clandestine intelligence gathering unit known as Unit 8200.
This mirrors other forms of repression that we face as an international organization, such as the recent banning of Samidoun in Germany. We are a prime target for Meta due to our unapologetic stance in support of Palestinian prisoners and the noble Palestinian Resistance, who will bring Palestine victory and freedom.
On Monday, June 3rd, the Zionist entity’s Content Review section of their Cybercrime Department in the Israeli State Attorney’s Office contacted Samidoun Network’s website provider to attempt to have our website taken down. The email states that this is a “content removal request regarding the website https://samidoun.net/ which is using your services.” It continues to cite Israeli and German law that refers to Samidoun as a “terrorist organization” and states that the content of the website violates the Israeli Counter-Terrorism Act (2016). Specific phrases and content that are flagged as problematic are “calls to escalate the global ‘intifada’, calls to release convicted terrorists, condolences for the death of Hamas’s (terror organization) leader- Saleh Al-Arouri, calls the advocates to lead a siege on the White House and more.”
We are not the first organization to be a target of Meta’s censorship and will not be the last. We refuse to be silenced. This is a stark reminder that to be attacked by the enemy is not a bad thing, but a good thing. As we continue to be suppressed, we will only grow louder in our demands for freedom of all Palestinian prisoners and for a liberated Palestine from the river to the sea. We invite you, comrades, to join us on Telegram where we will continue to resist Meta censorship.
Until Victory,
Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network
SAMIDOUN TELEGRAM CHANNELS:
Samidoun Network: https://t.me/SamidounNetwork
Samidoun Toronto: https://t.me/SamidounTO
Samidoun NY/NJ: https://t.me/SamidounNyNj
Samidoun Paris Banlieue: https://t.me/samidounparisbanlieue
Samidoun Göteborg / Sweden: https://t.me/samidounsweden
Samidoun Estado Español: https://t.me/samidoun
Samidoun Vancouver: https://t.me/samidounvan
SOURCES:
https://www.apc.org/en/blog/meta-israel-nexus-silencing-palestinian-voices-digital-landscape
