Palestinian Activists Turn to TikTok to Spread Israel's Crimes

Ramallah, MINA – Palestinian activists turn to TikTok to spread Israeli crimes in the occupied territories. The social media platform has been accused of fueling the security situation in the Middle East in recent weeks.

However, as quoted by Arab News on Sunday, TikTok, which is owned by Chinese company ByteDance, rejects Israel’s accusations and will not change its policy.

Israel has previously succeeded in pushing Meta to block thousands of Palestinian accounts and content from its social media platforms, such as Facebook and Instagram, as well as restrict Palestinian content via Twitter and Snapchat.

Thousands of Palestinian social media activists have turned to TikTok over the past few weeks to enjoy online freedom and bypass Facebook restrictions.

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Amer Hamdan, a Palestinian political activist said he recently switched from Facebook to Tiktok after facing restrictions such as the use of the words martyrdom, resistance, and occupation.

Hamdan, who had 200,000 followers on his Facebook page, was shut down for publishing a photo of Khalil Al-Wazir, the Palestinian leader whom Israel assassinated in Tunisia in 1988.

“Since Facebook is no longer an ideal platform for Palestinians to spread their cause, the alternative is TikTok, which provides adequate space for media dissemination, such as armed parades of Palestinian military groups and images of Palestinian resistance fighters with their weapons,” Hamdan said.

TikTok previously ranked third in Palestine after Facebook and Instagram in the use of social media applications. However, it jumped to second place over the past few weeks. More than 1 million Palestinians are on TikTok with a rapidly increasing number.

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The Palestinian activist also sees more technical flexibility when publishing on Tiktok compared to Facebook, with the platform allowing three-minute clips for all users and 15-minute videos for users with 1,000 followers or more.

“Within a year, TikTok will become the number one social media platform used by Palestinians,” Hamdan said. (T/RE1)

Mi’raj News Agency (MINA)