Ahmed Kamel – Egypt Daily News
The permanent removal of Palestinian journalist Bisan Owda from TikTok has ignited renewed concern over censorship, political influence, and the growing power of pro-Israel lobbying in shaping content moderation across global media platforms.
Owda, an Emmy Award-winning journalist and contributor to Al Jazeera’s AJ+, announced on Wednesday that TikTok had deleted her account, which had more than 1.4 million followers and over 19 million likes. Speaking from Gaza in a video posted to Instagram and X, she said the ban came without warning.
“TikTok deleted my account. I had 1.4 million followers there, and I have been building that platform for four years,” Owda said. “I expected restrictions, like every time, not a permanent ban.”
For years, Owda had used TikTok to document daily life under Israeli bombardment, becoming one of the most recognisable Palestinian voices online. Her short videos, often opening with the line “It’s Bisan from Gaza, and I’m still alive,” were widely shared and cited as a rare, direct eyewitness archive of events on the ground.
The ban occurred just days after TikTok confirmed the completion of a major restructuring of its US operations, creating a new US-based entity controlled by American investment firms, with ByteDance retaining a minority stake. The deal followed intense political pressure from US lawmakers and months of negotiations over the platform’s future.
Shortly after Owda’s announcement, an account using her username remained visible in some regions but not others. In certain locations, a notice stated that “posts that some may find uncomfortable are unavailable.” The most recent visible post was dated September 20, 2025, weeks before a ceasefire in Gaza.
Owda linked her removal to recent political and policy developments, including statements by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and changes overseen by Adam Presser, the newly appointed CEO of TikTok’s US arm.
Netanyahu, who met with pro-Israel social media influencers in New York last year, openly described TikTok as a strategic battleground. At the meeting, he said the platform was “number one” in its global influence and expressed hope that its acquisition would be finalised, calling it “consequential” to Israel’s information war.
Presser, meanwhile, has drawn scrutiny for his public comments and reported engagements with Jewish organisations regarding TikTok’s moderation framework. In an undated video shared by Owda, Presser discusses redefining hate speech enforcement, including treating the use of the term “Zionist” as a proxy for a protected characteristic.
“There’s no finish line to moderating hate speech,” Presser says in the clip, describing ongoing efforts to identify and counter what TikTok deems harmful trends.
Reports from early 2026 indicate that Presser has discussed these policies with groups such as the World Jewish Congress, working alongside Jewish organisations to shape how terms like “Zionism” and “Zionist” are interpreted and moderated on the platform. Critics argue that this approach risks shielding a political ideology from scrutiny while criminalising or suppressing legitimate criticism of Israel and Zionism.
Digital rights advocates and Palestinian media analysts say Owda’s ban fits a broader pattern in which Palestinian documentation is increasingly removed or deprioritised, particularly as major technology platforms align more closely with US and Israeli political interests.
Writer Ismail Aderonmu described the removal of Owda’s account as the effective erasure of “one of the clearest eyewitness archives of Israeli atrocities in Gaza.” Whether TikTok confirms the reasoning behind the ban, he argued, the outcome is the same: critical documentation has disappeared.
Aderonmu and others have also pointed to what they describe as expanding media consolidation, noting overlapping circles of influence among technology firms, news organisations, and billionaire ownership. While formally separate, these entities increasingly shape what content survives algorithmic and policy scrutiny.
Since TikTok’s restructuring, users have reported a surge in content takedowns, reduced reach, and warnings on Palestine-related posts. Hashtags such as #TikTokCensorship have trended, with many users alleging selective enforcement that disproportionately affects Palestinian voices while allowing pro-Israel narratives to circulate freely.
In response, some creators have begun migrating to alternative platforms such as UpScrolled, a short-form video app founded by Palestinian-Jordanian-Australian developer Issam Hijazi. The platform, marketed as censorship-free, promises transparent moderation, no shadowbanning, and equal visibility, and has gained support from advocacy groups including Tech for Palestine.
For many observers, Owda’s case has become symbolic of a deeper struggle over media control in the digital age. As social media platforms centralise ownership and redefine moderation through political and ideological lenses, critics warn that Palestinian narratives are being systematically marginalised.
Owda’s disappearance from TikTok, they argue, is not an isolated incident but part of a wider shift in which corporate power, political pressure, and Zionist influence increasingly determine which stories are seen — and which are silenced.
