Bella Hadid Accuses Instagram Of 'Bullying' After ‘Removing’ Photo
Bella Hadid has criticised Instagram for removing a photograph of her father Mohammed Hadid's American passport that states his birthplace is Palestine.
On Tuesday, the supermodel shared several posts on Instagram Stories which she alleges were initially removed by the social media platform. One post, which had the caption ‘My baba and his birthplace of Palestine’, she says was censored for breaching Instagram’s company guidelines.
'Instagram removed my story that only said "My baba And his birthplace of Palestine" with a photograph of his American passport,’ she told her 31.4 million Instagram followers with a screenshot of a message explaining the post’s removal from Instagram.
She asked the platform: '@instagram exactly what part of me being proud of my fathers birth place of Palestine is "bullying, harassment , graphic, or sexual nudity"? [sic]
‘Are we not allowed to be Palestinian on Instagram? This, to me, is bullying. You can't erase history by silencing people. It doesn't work like that.'
The generic Instagram post informing her of the breach reads: ‘We removed your story because it goes against our Community Guidelines on harassment or bullying. We have these guidelines because we want our community to feel respected and safe.'
An excerpt of the platform's Community Guidelines states: 'We may remove entire posts if either the imagery or associated captions violate our guidelines.'
The model went on to repost the passport photo of her father with the caption: ‘Do you want him to change his birthplace for you?
‘I am proud to be Palestinian. Everyone should post where their mother and fathers were born today! Remind them how proud you are of where you come from,’ she concluded another caption.
The model’s older sister, Gigi, also shared the New York-based star’s posts with a gif that reads ‘proud’ over her father’s passport photo.
In response to Bella's post, a Facebook spokesperson tells ELLE UK: 'To protect the privacy of our community, we don’t allow people to post personal information, such as passport numbers, on Instagram.
'In this case the passport number was blurred out, so this content shouldn't have been removed. We've restored the content and apologise to Bella for the mistake.'
The famous sisters are of Palestinian and Dutch heritage and have regularly spoken out about their family’s origins over the years.
In 2018, Gigi and Bella spoke out against the killing of over 60 Palestinians by Israeli troops.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. For me, this is not about religion or one against the other - it’s about the greed. #FreePalestine #freegaza #coexist ☮️
— Gigi Hadid (@GiGiHadid) May 15, 2018
In May that year, the troops shot dead 58 largely unarmed Palestinians in Gaza and a further two were killed the next day.
Thousands were wounded as they attempted to protest President Donald Trump’s decision to move the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. Jerusalem is the holy land for the Muslim, Jewish and Christian faiths, and is contested over by both Palestine and Israel.
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