<\/p>\n
What has emerged is an unspoken rivalry between independent voices on the ground and global media giants \u2014 the judges of whom are the people.<\/p>\n
In 2007, Palestinian poet and author Mahmoud Darwish<\/a> wrote, \u201cThe Palestinians are the only nation in the world that feels with certainty that today is better than what the days ahead will hold.\u201d Today, 75 years after the Nakba, the poignancy of his words cut deeper; echoing the unceasing suffering of the Palestinians.<\/p>\n Following the Hamas attack on Israel last month,<\/a> the region witnessed yet another violent chapter, with thousands of innocent civilians killed and hundreds of thousands displaced.<\/p>\n \u201cWe are fighting human animals,\u201d said an unapologetic Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant on October 9, after Israel imposed a total blockade of the Gaza strip, cutting off electricity, and blocking the entry of food, fuel, and water. Subsequently, Israeli airstrikes bombed the besieged land, reducing entire neighbourhoods to rubble. These tides of brutality disregarded the difference between militants and civilians, exposing the invasion for what it really is \u2014 a blatant breach of international and humanitarian law, and a mockery of Israeli claims that their operation is against Hamas.<\/p>\n Today, the death toll in Gaza has risen over 11,500<\/a>, nearly a third of whom are children, while an estimated 2,700 people remain missing.<\/p>\n Even as Israel launched its offensive, another front opened up against the Palestinians \u2014 the mainstream Western media. Media outlets such as BBC<\/em>, CNN<\/em>, and Fox News<\/em> acted as unofficial spokespersons for Israel.<\/p>\n Every Palestinian guest appearing on these channels was prompted to \u201ccondemn Hamas\u201d, while pro-Israeli guests were rarely asked to condemn the brutality of Israel\u2019s response. Claims of Israeli war crimes from Palestinian sources were consistently met with scepticism and demands for evidence, while Israeli claims were taken as the gospel truth and given extensive coverage.<\/p>\n This muffling of pro-Palestinian voices stirred a huge reaction from social media. What emerged was an unsaid rivalry between independent voices on the ground and global media giants \u2014 the judges of whom are the people. Public opinion on social media challenged the Israeli narrative as loud as the mainstream media carried it.<\/p>\n Social media became a vital source of information that showed the unfiltered ground reality. Merely hours into the conflict, social media platforms were flooded with content from both Palestine and Israel.<\/p>\n Over time, this became all the more important as journalists reporting from the Gaza strip were killed in numbers never seen before. According to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), between October 7 and November 16, at least 42 journalists have been killed in the violence.<\/a> Among the victims are 37 Palestinian journalists, four Israeli, and one Lebanese. Another nine journalists have been reportedly injured, three are missing and 13 have been arrested.<\/a><\/p>\n In spite of this, the world saw images that mainstream media downplayed or simply ignored \u2014 gut-wrenching videos of injured children in crowded hospitals, vacant gazes and uncontrollable trembles from trauma; pictures of infants with fragile bodies, bombed, drenched in blood, lying limp in the arms of wailing parents, cradling them as if they were alive; rows upon rows of lifeless bodies, once vibrant and breathing, now reduced to mere statistics.<\/p>\n These devastating visuals, combined with the rejection of a ceasefire by Western powers, added to the social media uprising for Palestine.<\/p>\n \u201cIt is heartless to not speak up. While some may understandably feel reluctant or overwhelmed by the distressing content, this is an issue that transcends individual discomfort,\u201d says Irum Amir, 50, from Lahore.<\/p>\n And so, with the rise of the \u2018conflict\u2019 rose the global conversation about Western media bias, complicity and double standards.<\/p>\n On one hand, there was an inflow of provocative content from pro-Israeli accounts, marked by a celebratory, mocking tone directed at the Palestinian plight, while on the other, pro-Palestinian accounts encountered perplexing and excessive content moderation \u2014 also known as \u2018shadow banning\u2019.<\/p>\n Posts and comments containing words like \u201cgenocide\u201d, \u201cFree Palestine\u201d, and \u201cGaza\u201d were subject to flagging and removal. Even factual records of the violence were met with bans.<\/p>\n One of the most prominent voices, Motaz Azaiza<\/a>, a Palestinian journalist who shares extensive live coverage and content from Gaza has garnered 14.5 million followers on Instagram and 494,000 followers on X (formerly Twitter). Amidst the vicious assaults, his account on X was temporarily suspended.<\/p>\n Eye on Palestine<\/a>, an Instagram account with over 8m followers, delivered first-hand reports of the attacks and the aftermath on civilians. This page also faced a temporary ban, and these acts of censorship were met with strong backlash<\/a> from online users.<\/p>\n Rasha Abdul-Rahim, Director of Amnesty International Tech stated<\/a> on October 27, \u201cAs Israel intensifies its unprecedented bombardment of Gaza that has killed over 7,000 people, most of whom are civilians, we are extremely concerned by reports of partial blocking and removal, known as \u2018shadowbanning\u2019, of content from advocates of Palestinian rights.\u201d<\/p>\n The Palestinian counter-narrative<\/h2>\n
Censorship and consequences<\/h2>\n