Alleging security breach, Meta shuts down pro-Palestinian account with 6 mn followers

Instagram's parent company Meta said on Wednesday that it has blocked a pro-Palestinian account with a large following after discovering what appeared to be a potential hacking attempt. The firm was attempting to get in touch with the account's owner.

On Wednesday, the Instagram account @eye.on.palestine—which has over 6 million followers—went dark. Along with the primary account, @eye.on.palestine2, a backup Facebook account and a Threads account were inaccessible on Wednesday. The Instagram pages displayed the message "Sorry, this page isn't available" when they were visited on Wednesday, the New Indian Express reported.

The account centred on images from Gaza that showed the injuries and deaths of civilians brought on by Israeli airstrikes in the area. The page's admins announced on Telegram in May 2023 that they had received a notice from Instagram stating that a "government-backed hacker" was attempting to remove the page.

Some pro-Palestinian accounts with fewer followers were also unavailable. “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.”

The account @EyeonPalestine on X, formerly known as Twitter, was labelled as inactive. It is unclear when the account disappeared.

Instagram users have accused the social media site of "shadow-banning" profiles that support Palestine, accusing it of restricting such accounts. The act of blocking or partially blocking a person or their content from accessing specific portions of an online community in a way that makes the ban invisible to the user is known as "shadow banning."

Instagram users worldwide, including authors, activists, journalists, filmmakers, and others, have reported that the platform is hiding posts that contain hashtags like "FreePalestine" and "IStandWithPalestine" or convey messages of support for the Palestinian people.

In addition, many have claimed that Instagram has removed posts that show the devastation in Gaza because they violate "community guidelines."

The spokesperson for Meta, Stone, had stated on X that a bug was affecting some posts' reach and that it was unrelated to the content's matter.

Now in its nineteenth day, the war is the deadliest of Gaza's five hostilities.

The initial Hamas strike in Israel claimed the lives of almost 1,400 individuals. Additionally, militants from Hamas kidnapped 222 captives.

According to the Health Ministry, at least 6,546 Palestinians have died and 17,439 more have been injured.