A group of Palestinian activists launched a petition to call on social media platforms to stop violating Palestinian freedom of expression and content restriction.

The petition on Change.org describes as follows:

“As part of our Palestinian activism on social media, we have recently noted the escalation of crackdowns on our content through restricting access and closing a number of pages on Meta’s platforms and the rest of the social media platforms. Over the past months, the documented data reported and submitted by Palestinian journalists and activists, human rights defenders, and media professionals indicate a dramatic escalation of oppression of Palestinian content by Meta’s giant platforms like Facebook and WhatsApp, and last but not least, Twitter.

According to the data reported, more than 425 digital violations of Palestinian content by social networking sites have been detected during the first half of 2022, with “Facebook” as the most oppressing platform with around (273) violations, and WhatsApp with (60). While on Instagram, (30) violations were noted. And on TikTok, over (21) violations emerged. As for YouTube, (14) violations took place against Palestinian accounts, and (12) on Twitter. Finally, Club House has been seen closing (10) Palestinian accounts at least as well.

By reviewing a sample of the banned publications, it was clear to us that such content was committed to exposing the violations and crimes of the Israeli occupation in the Gaza Strip, Jerusalem, and the West Bank.

These systematic attacks on Palestinians in their home and the virtual spaces they are given urge the world to push for international accountability for the perpetrators of these digital as well as physical crimes, in order to ensure a safe approach to respect human rights universally.

Perhaps what confirms the deliberate targeting of Palestinian content is the agreements between the corporate media institutions and the Israeli occupation, with the aim to fight the Palestinian content under various pretexts. These agreements which caused the suspension of publications, account closures, and reduced access to the active Palestinian pages, are truly unfair, illegal, and immoral.

Based on the information above, we, the undersigned, demand immediately that media platforms stop violating freedom of opinion and expression and the policy of combating content speaking on the human rights of Palestinians in their home and abroad.

These illegal actions clearly violate the text of Article 19 of the Universal Declaration and the International Covenant on Human Rights.

We call on the institutions of the United Nations, international human rights, and media institutions to condemn this breach and call on respect for freedom of opinion and expression for the Palestinian people.

Finally, an end to the Israeli attacks and false charges against the Palestinian people is much needed.”

You can access the petition from the link bellow.

Petition · Stop Suppressing the Palestinian Voice in the Media · Change.org