Award-Winning Palestinian Journalist Banned From TikTok After Trump-Backed Investor Takeover

[cbabe]

https://www.commondreams.org/news/tiktok-bans-palestinian-journalist

Award-Winning Palestinian Journalist Banned From TikTok After Trump-Backed Investor Takeover

The ban of journalist Bisan Owda comes amid an alleged wave of censorship after the platform was taken over by a clique of Trump-aligned investors, including the pro-Israel megadonor Larry Ellison.

STEPHEN PRAGER
Jan 29, 2026

Bisan Owda is still alive, but not on TikTok.

The award-winning Palestinian journalist and filmmaker found that her social media account had been suddenly terminated days ago, as part of an alleged wave of censorship following the platform’s formal takeover by American investors last Thursday.

“TikTok deleted my account. I had 1.4 million followers there, and I have been building that platform for four years,” the 28-year-old Owda said in a video posted to her other social media accounts on Wednesday, just days after TikTok’s new owners assumed control.

“I expected that it would be restricted,” she said, “not banned forever.”

Owda had achieved a massive following for her daily vlogs documenting life amid Israel’s genocide in the Gaza Strip. She showed herself constantly on the move, one of the nearly 2 million residents in the strip forcibly displaced by the military onslaught, and gave viewers a firsthand account of Israel’s attacks on hospitals, its leveling of neighborhoods, and its assassinations of journalists.

Each of them began with the signature phrase: “It’s Bisan from Gaza, and I’m still alive.”

A documentary with that title, produced with the Al Jazeera media network, won multiple awards, including an Emmy in 2024 for news and documentary filmmaking.

… more …

Palestinian journalist Bisan Owda regains TikTok account after outcry | AJ #shorts

https://m.

Bisan from Gaza: Still Alive" Wins 2024 Emmy Amid Disqualification Calls

https://m.

[snot]

1. Censorship is a blindfold, not a band-aid.

Per the Committee to Protect Journalists,

As of January 6, 2026, CPJ’s preliminary investigations showed at least 252 journalists and media workers were among the more than tens of thousands killed in Gaza, Yemen, Lebanon, Israel, and Iran since the Israel-Gaza war began, making it the deadliest period for journalists since CPJ began gathering data in 1992.

To date, CPJ has documented:

249 journalists and media workers killed by Israel, of which:
209 were Palestinians killed in Gaza
31 Yemenis in Yemen
6 Lebanese in Lebanon
3 Iranians in Iran.
2 Israelis killed in Israel by Hamas
1 Palestinian journalist killed by an armed group in Gaza
173 journalists reported injured
2 journalists reported missing
94 journalists arrested
Multiple assaults, threats, cyberattacks, censorship, and killings of family members.

(See https://cpj.org/2023/10/journalist-casualties-in-the-israel-gaza-conflict/ )

The UN puts the number of Palestinian journalists alone killed by Israel during the Gaza war even higher, at 242 as of August 11, 2025 (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_journalists_killed_in_the_Gaza_war ).

Moreover, since the 10/7 attack, Israel has banned all journalists not already resident in Gaza from entering (see https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cly3jwlz98do ).

As terrible as what we've noneless learned and seen of what's been happening Gaza may be, what's actually been happening could well be much worse.