Owda’s account had 1.4 million followers, she said.

The Palestinian journalist has spent years documenting life in Gaza under Israeli occupation and, recently, amid Israel’s genocide. Her series with Al Jazeera’s AJ+ has won numerous awards, including a Peabody Award, an Edward R. Murrow Award, and even an Emmy. At the same time, pro-Israel voices have sought to silence Owda, including in a campaign in 2024 to pressure her Emmy nomination to be withdrawn.

In her Instagram video, Owda said that the ban was “expected” due to pressure from high-powered figures to censor Palestinian voices from TikTok.

She overlaid a video of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s remarks at the UN General Assembly in September, in which he named TikTok as a “number one” priority of Israel.

She also shared a video with the company’s U.S. CEO, Adam Presser, saying that the company made a change to designate critically labelling someone as a “Zionist” as hate speech. “Over the course of 2024, we tripled the amount of accounts that we were banning for hateful activity,” Presser bragged at a conference last year.

  • Limerance@piefed.socialEnglish
    31·
    21 hours ago

    The account did appear to be banned on Wednesday and Thursday. However, late Thursday afternoon Eastern Time, Owda’s account appeared to be restored, but restricted. Some content seemed to not be available, and a banner appeared at the top of her feed that read: “Posts that some may find uncomfortable are unavailable.”

    The account is back evidently.