Facebook and Twitter have been shutting down Hamas-affiliated accounts in light of Israeli accusations that the terror organization uses the social media platforms to spread its message of hate and incitement.
Although the social media giants have been removing Hamas-affiliated accounts for over a year, the trend has only started becoming noticeable over the last few months.
Facebook closed down Hamas’s official page and later closed the “Shihab” page, which was affiliated with the Gaza terror group and had over a million followers. A new page was opened soon after and quickly garnered 5.5 million followers. Facebook hasn’t shut the page down thus far, despite the fact it features inciting content that calls for an escalation of the intifada and glorifies terrorists.
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Several other Facebook pages in major Palestinian universities in the West Bank that were connected to Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad have also been taken down over the past week, alongside other pages that focused on Hamas’s efforts to further escalate the ongoing wave of terrorist attacks.
Meanwhile, the Hamas military wing took a hard hit from Twitter. The Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades have been using the social media platform for years to spread their message.
But over the past few weeks, Twitter shut down the Hamas military wing’s official pages in Arabic, English, and even in Hebrew, as well as the account of Hamas spokesman Abu Obeida, which had 156, 000 ollowers.
However, the Hamas military wing hasn’t given up and is constantly opening new Twitter accounts to replace the old ones.
Hamas stated that “while Twitter opens its platform to racist and extremist Israeli organizations and people, the platform has closed, for the third time in two weeks, the official accounts of the al-Qassam Brigades.”
Hamas further accused Twitter of choosing a side in the conflict and for not remaining neutral or safeguarding the freedom of expression for those who use it.
