Emmy-winning Owda points to changes in TikTok’s US ownership, remarks from Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu to explain ban.
Award-winning Palestinian journalist Bisan Owda has said she has been permanently banned from TikTok, days after the social media platform was acquired by new investors in the United States.
Owda, an Emmy Award-winning journalist and contributor to Al Jazeera’s AJ+ from Gaza, shared a video on her Instagram and X accounts on Wednesday, telling her followers that her TikTok account had been banned.
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“TikTok deleted my account. I had 1.4 million followers there, and I have been building that platform for four years,” Owda said in the video filmed from Gaza.
“I expected that it will be restricted, like every time, not banned forever,” she added.
Al Jazeera sent a query to TikTok inquiring about Owda’s account and is waiting for a reply.
Hours after Owda shared her video, an account that appeared to have the same username was still visible on TikTok with a message that said: “Posts that some may find uncomfortable are unavailable.”
The last post visible on that account was from September 20, 2025, nearly three weeks before a ceasefire was reached in Israel’s genocidal war on the Gaza Strip.
In her video on Wednesday, Owda pointed to recent remarks from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as well as Adam Presser, the new CEO of TikTok’s US arm, as a possible explanation for the ban.
Netanyahu met with pro-Israel influencers in New York in September last year, telling them that he hoped the “purchase” of TikTok “goes through”.
“We have to fight with the weapons that apply to the battlefield in which we engage, and the most important ones are social media,” Netanyahu, who is a war crimes suspect, said at the time.
“The most important purchase that is going on right now is … TikTok,” Netanyahu added. “TikTok, number one, number one, and I hope it goes through, because it can be consequential,” he said.
TikTok announced last week that a deal to establish a separate version of the platform in the US had been completed, with the new entity controlled by investment firms, many of which are American companies, including several linked to US President Donald Trump.
Owda also shared an undated video of Adam Presser, the new CEO of TikTok’s US arm.
In the video, Presser speaks about changes made at TikTok, where he previously worked as head of operations in the US, saying that “the use of the term Zionist as a proxy for a protected attribute” had been designated “as hate speech”.
“There’s no finish line to moderating hate speech, identifying hateful trends, trying to keep the platform safe,” Presser said.
Zionism is a nationalist ideology that emerged in the late 1800s in Europe, calling for the creation of a Jewish state.
Owda’s social media presence grew from posting daily videos in which she greeted her audience, saying, “It’s Bisan From Gaza – and I’m still alive.”
She made a documentary of the same name with Al Jazeera’s AJ+, which was awarded an Emmy in the Outstanding Hard News Feature Story category in 2024.
Her video on Wednesday came as Israel’s top court again postponed making a decision on whether foreign journalists should be allowed to enter and report on Gaza independently of the Israeli military.
Despite the ongoing ceasefire, an Israeli attack last week killed three Palestinian journalists in Gaza.
According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, at least 207 Palestinian journalists and media workers have been killed in Gaza since October 2023, with the “vast majority” killed by Israeli forces.
