Twitter suspended multiple accounts from a leading Palestinian news site on Saturday. Quds News Network (QNN) found three of its accounts suspended, their main Arabic account, English account, and breaking news account.
QNN’s main Arabic account has over 633 thousand followers, the English account has over 28 thousand followers, and the breaking news account has over 145 thousand followers. All three accounts are verified with a blue check mark.
According to QNN’s website, Twitter did not give any reason for the suspensions.
Nisreen al-Khatib, co-director of QNN, tweeted on Saturday, “I find myself helpless as Twitter has today morning suspended 3 verified accounts of the network I work with, w/out offering reasons. Quds News Network is an essential site for publishing the Palestinian content in Arabic & English to the world!”
The suspensions come two weeks after the Palestinian Authority included QNN on a list of over 50 news websites to be banned for allegedly publishing information that is a threat to “national security and peace.” Activists suspect this is an attempt by the Palestinian Authority to silence critical voices.
Twitter also suspended accounts affiliated with Hamas and Hezbollah over the weekend. Hamas’s English and Arabic accounts have been suspended, as well as Al-Ahmed and Al-Manar news agencies, both based out of Lebanon and affiliated with the political party Hezbollah.
Last month, a small group of bipartisan members of Congress, penned a letter to Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, urging him to remove accounts associated with Hamas and Hezbollah. “If you believe that Twitter is better at determining violent extremist content than the United States Government’s interagency process, then we urge you to come testify before Congress to explain your own process and how it differs from that of the State and Treasury Departments.” The letter was signed by Reps. Josh Gottheimer (D-NY), Tom Reed (R-NY), Max Rose (D-NY), and Brian Fitzpatrick (R-PA).
It is time for other countries who support Palestinian rights ,to ban twitter .
Can the Gov interfere with private ? Can it suppress the free speech of millions who use twitter ? can the gov ban something that is not financed by tax payers?
Yes it can. Give has just to find excuses quasi -fake reason emotionally appropriate words after the ban.
Citizen who pay taxes should force the government to remove twitter because their “common space’ has been hijacked to funnel only certain views and ignore others . If “common space” in misuse exploitation or pollution of water air sun and all sorts of other areas could be invoked as reasons for government control ,so can the uses of bandwidth , frequency and internet communication .
If private agency can get away with propagandizing one version of the events and the histories, it should not be allowed to function .
“If private agency can get away with propagandizing one version of the events and the histories, it should not be allowed to function .”
With that statement, you seem to be demanding that you be censored. Or do you claim that every time you write something, you include all versions of the events and histories?
Its not about one voice or my voice .Its not about individual getting banned ( even that if selective can be cause for banning ). This is collective punishment and is denial of services while same time delivering same services to the opposite camps .