How free is your freedom of speech?

Since the start of the events on October 7th, 2023, a notable surge in social media content centering on the war in Gaza has been observed. Instagram, owned by Meta, and Tiktok have both shown a rise in the use of both hashtags #standwithpalestine (1.6M posts on Tiktok, 348K posts on Instagram as of January 22, 2024) and #standwithisrael (56.9K posts on Tiktok, and 298K posts on Instagram as of January 22, 2024). 

Since the great surge of pro-Palestinian content, Meta has also worked tirelessly to censor and silence the pro-Palestinian narrative. While censorship of Pro-Palestinian content is not new and has been reported on by numerous media outlets, including The Guardian, and Aljazeera where they coined the term “Digital Apartheid” back in 2021, there has been a chilling increase of censorship of pro-Palestine content worldwide, and Canada is no exception. 

Multiple social media influencers and journalists have received numerous warnings about the potential removal of their Instagram accounts due to allegedly sharing content that “violates” Instagram’s community guidelines. In analyzing the posts that allegedly violated the guidelines, it became evident that Instagram is “misapplying its policies on violent and graphic content, violence and incitement, hate speech, nudity and sexual activity” as reported by Human Rights Watch. One of many noteworthy cases include Motaz Azaiza, a Journalist in Gaza with 17.7M followers on Instagram, who has seen many of his posts removed under false claims of “sexual activity and nudity”. In addition, on December 24th, 2023 Shaun King’s account was removed from Instagram as a result of highlighting the atrocities committed by Israel against Palestinian civilians. Accounts have also been shadowbanned well before the events of October 7th and an increase of reports from users cite their inability to engage with certain content or use certain features on their accounts as a form of suppression against any Palestinian content.

While we see the silencing on a global scale across social media platforms, the increased censorship and repercussions can also be seen in  Canada. Since the start of the October 7th events, the Legal Centre for Palestine (LCP) has received a number of reports from across Canada alleging defamation (41%), employment discrimination (51%), discrimination faced in an educational institution (31%), harassment (31%), and even crimes being committed against the complainants (4%) for openly supporting Palestinians. These figures speak to the concerning rise in anti-Palestinian racism. Many are afraid to speak up on the matter for fear of being fired from their jobs or receiving death threats, as some of the reported cases have confirmed. CBC has released an article on December 22nd coining this as the “chilling effect”, where a Toronto based lawyer expressed that none of the cases they have taken on showed any evidence for the statements made by their clients to be considered  as hate speech or discriminatory. Despite that, many have claimed they were falsely accused of supporting terrorism for merely defending Palestinian rights.

A number of Canadian officials, including Doug Ford and Anthony Housefather, have further fuelled the rise in anti-Palestinian racism with their relentless support for Zionism– a movement which by nature discriminates heavily against the Indigenous Palestinians. Even the Ontario Attorney General has contributed to a nationwide crackdown on any support for Palestine. All this seems clearly in contradiction with Canada’s most basic constitutional principles: While section 2(b) of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms -granting all Canadians freedom of expression- recognizes limits (i.e. hate speech, the honor and dignity of the person, etc.) there has been no evidence of the reported statements made by pro-Palestinians fitting any of the grounds that, according to the Charter, could justify  limiting freedom of expression.

This then begs the question – is the Canadian Charter only applicable to some and not others? Are we truly living in a democratic society if these rights cannot be upheld? The current crackdown on expression of  support for Palestinians is a clear violation of these fundamental rights, and Canada needs to recognize and remedy these violations.