Emmy-winner Ovda pointed to changes in TikTok’s US ownership, a comment made by Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu to explain the ban.
Award-winning Palestinian journalist Bisan Owda said she has been permanently banned from TikTok just days after buying the social media platform. New investors In the United States.
Owda, The Emmy Award-winning journalist And a 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’ve been building that platform for four years,” Ovada said in a video filmed from Gaza.
“I expected it to be banned forever, like every time,” she added.
Al Jazeera sent a query to TikTok to inquire about Owda’s account and is awaiting a response.
Hours after Owda shared her video, an account bearing the same username was still visible on TikTok with a message that read: “Posts that some may find uncomfortable are unavailable.”
The last post seen on that account was on September 20, 2025, almost three weeks ago There was a ceasefire In Israel’s genocidal war on the Gaza Strip.
In her video on Wednesday, Ovda pointed to recent comments by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as well as the new CEO of TikTok’s US arm, Adam Presser, as possible explanations for the ban.
Netanyahu met with influential pro-Israel figures in New York in September last year and told them he hoped “Purchasing” TikTok. “goes through”.
“We have to fight with weapons that apply to the battlefield we engage in and above all social media,” war crimes suspect Netanyahu said at the time.
“The most important purchase going on right now is … TikTok,” Netanyahu added. “TikTok, number one, number one, and I hope it continues, because it can be effective,” he said.
TikTok announced last week The deal to set up a separate version of the platform in the US has 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 unedited video of Adam Presser, the new CEO of TikTok’s US arm.
In the video, Presser talks about the changes at TikTok, where he previously served as head of operations in the US, saying that “the use of the word Zionist as a proxy for a protected attribute” was designated as “hate speech”.
“There’s no bottom line to policing hate speech, identifying hate trends, trying to keep platforms safe,” Presser said.
Zionism is a nationalist ideology that emerged in Europe in the late 1800s and called for the creation of a Jewish state.
Ovada’s social media presence grew from posting daily videos in which she greeted her audience with, “This is Bisan from Gaza – and I’m still alive.”
She made a documentary of the same name with Al Jazeera’s AJ+, which was Awarded Emmy 2024 in the Best Hard News Feature Story category.
On Wednesday, her video appeared in Israel’s Supreme Court Postponed again Deciding whether to allow foreign journalists to enter Gaza and report independently of the Israeli military.
Despite the cease-fire, the Israeli attack last week Three Palestinian journalists killed 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, “the vast majority” by Israeli forces.