7 Accounts of Palestinian Journalists were suspended by Facebook Recently

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Seven Palestinian editors from 2 different publications reported last week that they had been restricted and blocked from their personal accounts of Facebook without any reason and any kind of notice. The officials from Facebook informed on Saturday to The Electronic Intifada that they were blocked accidentally, but now 6 of them can access their account and one of them is still suspended. The employees from Quds News Network and Shehab News Agency had informed that their group members were banned accidentally. It is important that they also pointed out that Facebook has made an agreement in September 2016 with Israel for a joint crack down on provocation by Palestinians on social media network.

Regardless of accidentally or temporarily banned the accounts of journalists increased fear of restriction of freedom of speech on social media platform, specifically if the interruption is one-sided. The government of Israel has shown their feelings that some posts on the social media networks had directly motivated for a new wave of attacks since last October against Israel, so Israeli government pressurized Facebook to delete such material. Israeli government is continuously drafting a law to bound social media companies to meet their legal requirements. Point to be noted that Facebook, Google and YouTube are at least 95 percent agreed to comply the requests of Israeli government to delete such material from their networks that are motivating a wave of more attacks on Israeli forces. It is important that Israeli military source indicated that more than 100 Palestinians have been arrested for publishing these kinds of material since last November.