Shaun King rose to prominence as a voice for the Black Lives Matter movement in the mid-2010s [Ben Hasty/MediaNews Group/Reading Eagle via Getty]
US activist Shaun King claimed Monday that his account on social media platform Instagram had been suspended because of his posts in support of Palestine.
On Monday afternoon, the link to King’s Instagram page read: “Sorry, this page isn’t available. The link you followed may be broken, or the page may have been removed.”
In a message shared through the Wissamgaza account on the platform, King said he was “frustrated that Instagram has banned me for fighting for Palestine, and speaking up for the human rights and dignity of Palestinians”.
It remains unclear why Meta, the company that owns Instagram, removed King’s account.
However, many Palestinian and pro-Palestinian voices have experienced censorship on social media, particularly since Israel began its brutal assault on Gaza on 7 October that has so far killed more than 20,600 people and displaced almost all of the territory’s inhabitants.
Some social media pages that have served as vital sources of information from the ground in Gaza and the occupied West Bank have been deleted or temporarily suspended.
Other social media users posting pro-Palestine content have said they have experienced “shadow banning”, in which a user or their content is blocked or partially blocked from a platform without them being notified.
Human rights groups have also reported that social media platforms including Facebook and Instagram are systemically censoring pro-Palestinian voices, and called on platforms to do more to permit protected expression for such users.
Palestinian writer activist Mohammed El-Kurd‘s account on the social media platform ‘X’ disappeared on Sunday, amid a censorship of pro-Palestine voices across social media platforms.
He posted on Monday morning: “hi i’m back”. He did not say what had happened to his account on the platform, which was formerly known as Twitter.
El-Kurd rose to international recognition in 2021 for resisting and speaking up on Israeli evictions of Palestinians from their homes in occupied East Jerusalem, including his home neighbourhood of Sheikh Jarrah.
He is Palestine Correspondent for the left-wing US publication The Nation, and is Culture Editor for Palestine-focused news website Mondoweiss.
King’s millions-strong following on social media first blossomed while he was an activist for the Black Lives Matter movement in the US, founded in the mid-2010s to challenge.
However, he has been accused of pocketing funds meant to support the families of those killed by police brutality in the US. He has denied the allegations, saying that he has not pocketed any such funds.
