What exactly does it mean to be censored? Being censored is the censorship of words, images, or ideas that are “offensive.” This usually happens whenever a group of people are successful in imposing their political or moral values on others. Censorship can be carried out by the government as well as private pressure groups. The Pro-Palestine community has fallen victim to the suspension of our platforms as they have been found as a successful means of spreading awareness and telling the truth of what is continuously happening in Palestine. To this day, the world of social media has suppressed Palestinian voices from being heard, and our truth has been deemed something of an “offense” to the crimes that are committed in Palestinian territories. At this moment in time, Pro-Palestinian voices, and platforms are being censored as much as possible to limit the amount of information that is shared with the public about the inhumane malice and crimes imposed by the IOF on the Palestinian people.
Countless times pro-Palestinian platforms on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and other social media platforms have been shadow banned, blocked, or have been completely taken down. It’s an endless cycle of the Palestinian struggle being deemed an inconvenience or an unnecessary topic of discussion. back in May 2021 amidst the displacement of Palestinians in sheikh jarrah, PaliRoots 🇵🇸 as well as many other platforms were using their following as a means to spread awareness with the general public. As the information was successfully shared across all platforms and to millions of social media users, many pages and accounts were treated as posing a threat and had been silenced/censored. in January 2022 which was not long ago at all, Nora’s Erakat had been censored from going live on her Instagram platform to share the displacement of more Palestinians before it could ignite another rampage of angry pro-Palestine supporters. The amount of tactics that were used (and are still being used) against the Palestinian and pro-Palestinian community during the time of sheer injustice and when people were desperately calling for help, Instagram was doing everything in its power to shut us all down. Our team experienced some major setbacks when trying to communicate and share meaningful information with the world through social media. Ways in which Instagram censored us was through blocking our messages, blocking us from going on live, taking down our shop feature; might we add this feature is still down for us to this day almost a full year later, and shadow banning any of our posts when the word Palestine is in any caption or comment. It is evident that the platform will do anything and everything to silence us which only ignites a fire from within which in turn reminds us why we can never stop speaking on the injustices taking place in Palestine.
What the media knows is that censoring Palestinian and Pro-Palestinian platforms is extremely detrimental to our movement. We are no way intending to harm or disrespect anyone by speaking our truth, but with if our truth inconveniences you then there needs to be a clear understanding that you are as much of a contributor to the inhumane crimes as the people who inherently commit them. Rather, we work to use our voices to work towards liberation and bring social justice to Palestine. Trying to take away the one way that we have been able to get word out that our people are being treated in the most inhumane and hurtful ways possible is a clear form of discrimination and impertinence.
Censoring our movement will not stop us from speaking our truth and sharing the reality of what is happening in Palestine. The brining desire to stand up for, and fight for the basic human rights of all Palestinain’s will never cease to stand up even when the rest of the world is against us. For that very reason, we have come up with a meaningful form of expression through the use of clothing. Our censored collection works to fight back censorship and express the diligence we vest within us when it comes to spreading awareness about the harsh truth of Palestine. So with that being said, if you’re someone who wants to start conversations, and stand up against the world trying to silence us when the world Palestine is come up, then this is the collection for you. We hope to use this is a means to fight back, stand up, and push through all the efforts to silence all Pro-Palestine supporters.