Is Instagram Shadow-Banning Posts About Palestine?

In the aftermath of a deadly terrorist attack on Israel earlier this month, there was a wave of outrage online condemning the actions of Hamas militants. Since then, however, the issue has evolved to include nuanced views about the Israeli victims of the attack and the Palestinians living in Gaza under Hamas control.

Spreading the message

Pro-Palestinian social media users have attempted to shed light on the plight of those in Gaza, but a growing number of them say that their posts have had suspiciously low reach on Instagram.

This data has led to allegations that the platform’s parent company, Meta, might be “shadow-banning” users who comment on issues related to Palestine and Gaza. This practice involves allowing a post to remain live but limiting the number of people who can see and/or engage with it.

Pakistani writer Fatima Bhutto is one of those pointing the finger at Meta, noting that she “tried to comment on one of [her] own posts but it seems like they definitely are [blocking access].”

Another user, identified only as Ahmed, claimed that some of his videos have been “shared by thousands through stories” but were rendered unplayable by other Instagram users.

“Stop silencing Palestinians,” he replied.

Meta blames a ‘bug’

According to Andy Stone, a spokesperson for the tech company, there was an issue but it was unrelated to the content of specific videos and was far more widespread than just posts about the Israeli-Gaza conflict.

“We identified a bug impacting all Stories that re-shared Reels and Feed posts, meaning they weren’t showing up properly in people’s Stories tray, leading to significantly reduced reach,” he said.

The glitch has since been fixed, he said, and impacted accounts “equally around the globe and had nothing to do with the subject matter of the content.”

Chris Agee October 17th, 2023

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