The Scoop
Instagram took down several interviews about the war between Hamas and Israel in Gaza that were posted by the longrunning lefty independent media outlet, Democracy Now.
On Tuesday, Democracy Now published a minutes-long clip of an interview between host Amy Goodman and left-leaning journalist Jeremy Scahill in which they discussed Scahill’s recent interviews with members of Hamas. In the clip, Scahill laid out his reporting about whether members of the group knew that Israel would respond to the Oct. 7 attack that killed over a thousand Israelis with a months-long bombardment and invasion that has killed tens of thousands of Palestinians.
Shortly after the clip was posted to Instagram, the videos were removed and Democracy Now received a takedown notice saying that it had shared “symbols, praise, or support of people and organizations we define as dangerous.” According to one person familiar with the takedown notice, the posts went “against the community guidelines on dangerous individuals and organizations.”
While the clips had a pro-Palestinian bent, they are far from the only posts on the platform about the war that are critical of Israel, and it is unclear what about these clips stood out to Instagram.
Later on Tuesday, Democracy Now uploaded a more truncated version of the interview on its Instagram.
Reached for comment, a Meta spokesperson said the videos had both been removed in error, but had been restored.
Know More
The interview came a day after Scahill, a co-founder of the Intercept, and former Washington bureau chief Ryan Grim announced that they were leaving the Intercept to start Drop Site News, a new investigative site with a focus on conflict and politics. While there had been some friction between Intercept leadership and Scahill and Grim, Drop Site News is backed with some funding from the Intercept, which will continue to publish the podcasts Intercepted and Deconstructed.