A pro-Palestinian student group at Columbia University, Columbia Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), recently revealed that their Instagram account has been “permanently banned.” In a post on X (formerly known as Twitter), the group stated that their Instagram account was permanently deleted after reaching 124,000 followers. They further mentioned that when they tried to create a new account, it was also deleted within two days.
"As the school year is just about to begin, Columbia SJP has been permanently banned from Instagram," the group wrote on Monday. "Our account was permanently deleted at 124k followers, along with our backup account, and when we created a new page, it was deleted within 2 days."
When asked about the reason for their account being banned, Columbia Students for Justice in Palestine shared a screenshot from Instagram, which stated that their account had been disabled. The notification also informed the group that they could not “request another review of this decision.”
The group expressed their frustration, writing, “No reason given. Just that we cannot request another review.” They also mentioned a similar incident with another pro-Palestinian organization, Within Our Lifetime, whose Instagram account was also disabled months ago. "They still cannot make an Instagram page without it being taken down in hours," the group added.
“No reason given,” the group wrote. “Just that we cannot request another review. The same thing happened to Within Our Lifetime months ago, and they still cannot create an Instagram page without it being taken down within hours.”
This development follows months of pro-Palestinian activism at Columbia University, where protesters established an anti-Israel encampment on April 17. The following day, several students involved were suspended, and hundreds of protesters were arrested. A second encampment was set up at the university and remained until the end of April, when the New York Police Department raided it after anti-Israel protesters stormed and took control of a campus building.
In response to the initial encampment at Columbia, similar protests were organized at other universities, including George Washington University, the University of North Carolina, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Northwestern University.
Protesters across these encampments issued several demands, including that universities divest from companies with ties to Israel, end academic collaborations with Israeli institutions, call for a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, and disclose their financial investments, among other demands.
