Columbia University Pro-Palestinian Student Group ‘Permanently Banned’ from Instagram

A pro-Palestinian student group at Columbia University announced that its account was “permanently banned” from Instagram.

In a post on X, Columbia Students for Justice in Palestine explained that their account had been permanently deleted when it reached “124k followers,” adding that when they created a new account, “it was deleted” within two days.

“As the school year is just about to begin, Columbia SJP has been permanently banned from Instagram,” the group wrote in its post on Monday. “Our account was permanently deleted at 124k followers at the same time as our backup account, and when we made a new page it was deleted within 2 days.”

When asked by a person what the reason was for their account being banned, the group shared a screenshot they have received from Instagram informing the group that their account was disabled. Instagram explained that the group could not “request another review of this decision.”

“No reason given,” the group wrote. “Just that we cannot request another review. Same thing happened to Within our Lifetime months ago and they still cannot make an Instagram page without being taken down in hours.”

This comes months after pro-Palestinian protesters established an anti-Israel encampment at Columbia University on April 17. The next day, several students involved in the encampment were suspended and hundreds of protesters were arrested.

Another encampment was established at Columbia University and remained until the end of April, when New York Police Department officers conducted a raid after anti-Israel protesters stormed and seized control of a building on campus.

In response to the initial encampment that was established at Columbia University, encampments were established at other universities and colleges such as George Washington University, the University of North Carolina, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Northwestern University, among others.

Protesters involved in the various encampments issued a variety of demands calling for the universities to divest from companies that have ties to Israel, for the universities to end academic ties with educational institutions in Israel, and for a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, and for the universities to disclose their financial investments, among other demands.