Palestinian journalist Bisan Owda with 1.4m followers reports TikTok ban

Emmy-winning Owda points to changes successful TikTok’s US ownership, remarks from Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu to explicate ban.

Award-winning Palestinian writer Bisan Owda has said she has been permanently banned from TikTok, days aft the societal media level was acquired by new investors successful the United States.

Owda, an Emmy Award-winning journalist and contributor to Al Jazeera’s AJ+ from Gaza, shared a video connected her Instagram and X accounts connected Wednesday, telling her followers that her TikTok relationship had been banned.

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“TikTok deleted my account. I had 1.4 cardinal followers there, and I person been gathering that level for 4 years,” Owda said successful the video filmed from Gaza.

“I expected that it volition beryllium restricted, similar each time, not banned forever,” she added.

Al Jazeera sent a query to TikTok inquiring astir Owda’s relationship and is waiting for a reply.

Hours aft Owda shared her video, an relationship that appeared to person the aforesaid username was inactive disposable connected TikTok with a connection that said: “Posts that immoderate whitethorn find uncomfortable are unavailable.”

The past station disposable connected that relationship was from September 20, 2025, astir 3 weeks earlier a ceasefire was reached successful Israel’s genocidal warfare connected the Gaza Strip.

In her video connected Wednesday, Owda pointed to caller remarks from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu arsenic good arsenic Adam Presser, the caller CEO of TikTok’s US arm, arsenic a imaginable mentation for the ban.

Netanyahu met with pro-Israel influencers successful New York successful September past year, telling them that helium hoped the “purchase” of TikTok “goes through”.

“We person to combat with the weapons that use to the battlefield successful which we engage, and the astir important ones are societal media,” Netanyahu, who is simply a warfare crimes suspect, said astatine the time.

“The astir important acquisition that is going connected close present is … TikTok,” Netanyahu added. “TikTok, fig one, fig one, and I anticipation it goes through, due to the fact that it tin beryllium consequential,” helium said.

TikTok announced past week that a woody to found a abstracted mentation of the level successful the US had been completed, with the caller entity controlled by concern firms, galore of which are American companies, including respective linked to US President Donald Trump.

Owda besides shared an undated video of Adam Presser, the caller CEO of TikTok’s US arm.

In the video, Presser speaks astir changes made astatine TikTok, wherever helium antecedently worked arsenic caput of operations successful the US, saying that “the usage of the word Zionist arsenic a proxy for a protected attribute” had been designated “as hatred speech”.

“There’s nary decorativeness enactment to moderating hatred speech, identifying hateful trends, trying to support the level safe,” Presser said.

Zionism is simply a nationalist ideology that emerged successful the precocious 1800s successful Europe, calling for the instauration of a Jewish state.

Owda’s societal media beingness grew from posting regular videos successful which she greeted her audience, saying, “It’s Bisan From Gaza – and I’m inactive alive.”

She made a documentary of the aforesaid sanction with Al Jazeera’s AJ+, which was awarded an Emmy successful the Outstanding Hard News Feature Story class successful 2024.

Her video connected Wednesday came arsenic Israel’s apical tribunal again postponed making a determination connected whether overseas journalists should beryllium allowed to participate and study connected Gaza independently of the Israeli military.

Despite the ongoing ceasefire, an Israeli onslaught past week killed 3 Palestinian journalists successful Gaza.

According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, astatine slightest 207 Palestinian journalists and media workers person been killed successful Gaza since October 2023, with the “vast majority” killed by Israeli forces.