Award-winning Palestinian journalist says TikTok banned her account

Bisan Owda, an award-winning Palestinian journalist and contributor to Al Jazeera’s AJ+, has said that TikTok permanently banned her account, which had more than 1.4 million followers, days after the platform completed a deal to establish a separate US-controlled entity.

In a video posted on Instagram and X on January 29, Owda said her TikTok account had been removed without prior notice. She told followers that she had spent four years building her presence on the platform.

“I expected that it will be restricted, like every time, not banned forever,” she said.

In a recent report, Al Jazeera said it had contacted TikTok to seek clarification about the decision. Several hours after Owda shared her video, an account appearing to use the same username remained visible on TikTok in Australia, but was not accessible in the Middle East, according to checks conducted by the broadcaster across different regions.

In her video, Owda suggested that the ban may be linked to recent political developments surrounding the platform. She referred to remarks made by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and comments by Adam Presser, the newly appointed chief executive of TikTok’s US arm. 

At an event in New York in September last year, Netanyahu, who is a war crimes suspect, had publicly expressed support for the purchase of TikTok, describing the platform as a consequential tool in what he characterised as an information battlefield.

TikTok announced last week that it had completed a deal to create a distinct US version of the app, controlled by a group of investment firms, many of them American and some reportedly linked to the US President Donald Trump.

Owda also shared an undated clip of Presser, who previously served as TikTok’s head of US operations, discussing content moderation policies. In the video, Presser said the platform had designated the use of the term “Zionist” as a proxy for a protected attribute as hate speech.

Owda’s reporting has gained international attention through her daily social media videos from Gaza, which often begin with the phrase, “It’s Bisan from Gaza – and I’m still alive.” She later developed a documentary of the same name with AJ+, which won an Emmy Award in 2024 for Outstanding Hard News Feature Story.

According to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), at least 207 Palestinian journalists and media workers have been killed in Gaza since October 2023, with the majority of deaths attributed to Israeli forces.