The “Eye on Palestine” account, which has more than six million followers on Instagram and focuses on sharing content from Palestine, went dark on Wednesday.
‘Eye on Palestine’ is one of the most prominent multilingual pro-Palestine accounts on Instagram.
This comes amid Instagram and other social media platforms have been facing criticism for taking similar actions against accounts and posts that support Palestinian resistance against the Israeli occupation.
Meta was widely accused of censorship and bias during the ongoing Israel’s assault on Gaza, which killed over 6500 Palestinians, including 3000 children.
“Meta censorship of Palestinian voices has been damning and damaging. Eye on Palestine had over 6 million Instagram followers. Call for @Meta to reinstate this account now and stop silencing Palestinian voices,” said prominent Muslim scholar Dr. Omer Suleiman.
Meanwhile, Meta said it has locked the account after detecting a possible hacking attempt. The owner of Facebook, Instagram and Threads said it was trying to reach its owners.
A backup account, @Eye.on.palestine2, was also inaccessible on Wednesday, along with related Facebook and Threads accounts.
“These accounts were initially locked for security reasons after signs of compromise, and we’re working to make contact with the account owners to ensure they have access,” Meta spokesperson Andy Stone said in a statement. “We did not disable these accounts because of any content they were sharing.”
