Facebook And Twitter Shut Down Hamas-Related Pages

By R. Siva Kumar - 26 Apr '16 15:03PM

After the news that Hamas, the Palestinian Sunni-Islamic fundamentalist group uses Facebook and Twitter to spread its message throughout the web, the social media platforms shut down their pages linked to the organisation on April 22, 2016.

Hence, Hamas' official page, as well as its "Shibab" page got closed. About one million Facebook users had been following it at the time of its closure.

Facebook also traced many Palestinian university pages with links to Hamas. They were taken down, along with those that made references to the Palestinian Islamic Jihad. Hamas had been using these pages to develop its schemes.

Twitter too closed Hamas' military wing pages, published in many languages, including English and Hebrew. Users are trying to restore their presence through new accounts and are trying to spread their message.

For instance, the Twitter page of Hamas Military Wing Spokesman Abu Obeida had his account suspended. Still, he has created another Twitter account to again bring forth his speaking platform on the social network.

"Twitter yielded to the pressure of the enemy, which gives us an impression that it is not neutral in regards to the Palestinian case and it caves into political pressure," Obeida wrote on his Twitter page. "We are going to send our message in a lot of innovative ways, and we will insist on every available means of social media to get to the hearts and minds of millions."

However, this is not the first time that Facebook and Twitter closed their accounts. Earlier, in the summer of 2014, Twitter shut down its Hamas accounts.

A new report disclosed on April 25 that a number of financiers blacklisted by the U.S. government are still generating funds through the social media, according to the Wall Street Journal.