By Neelam Rahim

Twitter has blocked the account of prominent Palestinian journalist and creator Dr Ramzy Baroud. It’s the most recent instance of the continued crackdown on Palestinian solidarity by social media giants, which has escalated the concentration on free-speech crucial to Israel over recent years.

Twitter claimed that Baroud’s latest posts concerning the Israeli struggle with the Palestinians in besieged Gaza Strip and also the West financial institution “violated the principles” of the company. Baroud is a daily consumer of social media. His final tweet was a video compilation produced by the Palestine Chronicle displaying photos and details about the three Palestinians killed in Nablus in an Israeli army raid on Tuesday. The video was a newsreel that had no violent or bloody images.

His account has now been reinstated. Upon returning, Baroud wrote: “I by no means violated any ‘group guidelines.’ Some are overtly justifying, even praising the murders of kids in Gaza. They continue to be lively on Twitter & different social media platforms.”

It’s the first time that Baroud, a revered Palestinian tutorial, creator of a variety of books and the editor of the Palestine Chronicle, has been blocked from utilizing the favoured platform. The crackdown on Baroud is neither uncommon nor distinctive.

Recently, the social media giants have practised what commentators have called “digital apartheid.” In their defence of the apartheid state of Israel, they have adopted insurance policies that silence free speech exposing the occupation state’s many crimes and human rights violations.

Social media firms, from Zoom to Facebook and Twitter, are accused of reinforcing Israel’s erasure of Palestinians, not to show the mainstream media, which often come underneath hearth for their apparent hypocrisy and double requirements regarding protecting Israel and Palestine.

Baroud himself has coated social media’s “struggle on reality” in a piece of writing the place he highlighted, amongst other instances, Facebook’s concentration on the Palestinian Info Centre (PIC). The social media large deleted the online page of the favoured Palestinian information internet site, which had almost 5 million followers.

Recently, Zoom, Facebook and YouTube blocked the online tutorial “Whose Narratives? What Free Speech for Palestine?” co-sponsored by the Arab and Muslim Ethnicities and Diasporas (AMED) Research programme at San Francisco State College. The Council of UC School Associations (CUFCA) and the College of California Humanities Analysis Institute (UCHRI).