By October 7, and onwards, rattled our quiet homes around the world despite us being so far from the Gaza Strip. Our shock was soon overcome with disgust and anger as the Palestinian death toll quickly rose, and our young but strong journalists began posting gruesome and horrifying realities while sometimes using different symbols and emojis as they spoke about Gaza.
Motaz Azaiza, Plestia Alaqad, and Bisan Owda showed the power of social media in their persistent dedication to revealing the truth happening to their people in real time. It gave us a new perspective on victims of genocide. We now have the ability to create real connections with these brave young people. We check on them as soon as we wake up and right before we fall asleep to see if they’re still alive. We root for them and plaster their names and faces across posters and social media stories. They showed us the power of social media and the importance of posting, and honestly, sometimes it feels that our only means of helping them is through the apps that we scroll mindlessly through every single day.
Since October 7, the supporters of the resistance have found themselves being censored and silenced. Our strongest and most powerful tool—social media—quickly became a weapon used against educating the Western world and comforting the Palestinian souls that felt completely abandoned. Their cries, “Do you see us?” plastered in our minds. Quickly we became shadowbanned, with views ridiculously low. Our posts would not upload, and our stories would not be shown.
However, the fire that started fuelling millions of people around the world had already started: The fire that brought together hundreds of thousands at any given protest; the fire that showed different religions and ethnic groups coming together to stop genocide—Jewish and Muslim, non-Arab and Arab. The people demanded to be heard and to educate all on the genocide in Palestine against Palestinian people—the true Indigenous of the land.
As such, those against genocide have researched and learned new ways to go about Instagram’s conniving algorithm. So it’s not like Instagram is watching each individual story post and censoring anything with the words Palestine. Rather, there’s an algorithm in place that will automatically censor if it detects certain words strung together. This is why so many of our friends and influencers are posting “algorithm breaks” to encourage user engagement.
Here’s a screenshot from an Instagram user that posted their mug and captioned it, “shadowbanned.” 1 In the screenshot, their previous post had words such as “Palestine” and “Israel,” but the number of viewers is far less than the post after. How is that possible if we watch stories in chronological order? The only way for that to happen is if Instagram is deliberately censoring specific words, posts, and phrases.
Now, obviously, this doesn’t mean that we should give up and that posting is useless. On the contrary, if they are exerting their efforts towards silencing those that are educating and rioting against the injustice, then that means we’re pressing where it hurts.
During the Six-Day War in 1967, Israel took control of the West Bank and banned the use of the Palestinian flag in both the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. As a result, this regularly enjoyed and refreshing fruit became the symbol of the resistance across Palestine for its colors resembling the Palestinian flag.
This is why people have begun to use characters and symbols when writing their posts or tweets. “P@lest!ne” and “!$r@el” are merely two examples. You might even see people writing phonetically as an attempt to escape the algorithm’s censorship. Trust me, they know how to spell, they’re just doing whatever it takes to reach as many people as possible.
But, most notably, the watermelon emoji is quickly becoming the symbol of the Palestinian resistance once more. History truly does repeat itself. Notice the colors in a slice of watermelon—red pulp, white rind, green skin, and black seeds. Red, white, green, and black are all colors in the Palestinian flag.
During the Six-Day War in 1967, Israel took control of the West Bank and banned the use of the Palestinian flag in both the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. As a result, this regularly enjoyed and refreshing fruit became the symbol of the resistance across Palestine for its colors resembling the Palestinian flag.
In a similar attempt to fight against censorship, 55 years later, many are taking to social media to use the watermelon emoji to show their stance on the ongoing genocide. Watermelons are being painted on posters and on faces, and are even being used in the Instagram Notes feature. It is merely one way to escape the unfair censorship of the true humanitarian issue happening in Palestine.
The intifada, another word to describe the resistance, has propelled supporters to learn and use emojis and special characters as a way to intelligently fight the war of censorship thrust upon the entire movement. It is a movement that has been brewing for the last 75 years.
The role of the watermelon resurfacing decades later on such a massive scale truly shows that people have had enough and will continue to adapt to any challenge or obstacle that comes in the way of Palestine’s liberation. Its censorship has only harvested a stronger rebellion—one that stretches far past Gaza’s borders and into the hearts of all religions and ethnic groups.
- The user prefers to stay anonymous. ↩︎