Social media companies encroach Palestinian’s media freedom

During a press conference convened by Watan TV, the Palestinian Center for Development and Media Freedoms (MADA) issued its annual report on media freedoms in Palestine in 2019. The report sheds light on the different Israeli and Palestinian violations of media freedoms in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. On top of these violations were social media companies, particularly Facebook. According to the report, 181 violations were conducted by social media companies and networks, out of which 180 were reported to Facebook and WhatsApp. The target of these violations were journalists as well as Palestinian citizens which included the closing down by Facebook of news pages (belonging to various media outlets), and others belonging to Palestinian journalists, blocking them for specific periods, deleting content published on them, or preventing the administrators of these pages to post on Facebook.