Model Bella Hadid recently criticized the photo sharing platform, Instagram after it deleted a post honoring her father. It so happened that the 23-year-old had uploaded an image of her dad, Mohammed Hadid’s old US passport with his place of birth mentioned as Palestine. It was accompanied with the text “I am proud to be Palestinian.”
Now, the picture posted to her story was taken down by the Facebook-owned application claiming breach of "hate speech, harassment and bullying." Hadid asserted Instagram bullied her by eliminating her story about her daddy’s Palestinian origins.
"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," Hadid wrote on her stories.
The brunette beauty then posted a screengrab of the notification from Instagram that cited the violations of the application’s community guidelines. Over the screenshot, Hadid wrote, “@Instagram exactly what part of me being proud of my father’s birth place of Palestine is “bullying, harassment, graphic or sexual nudity?”
In a follow-up post, she requested Instagram users to post the birthplace of their parents and since many have corresponded and also lauded Hadid for speaking against Instagram's approach.
Referring to an apology by Facebook’s Instagram, a report in Page Six said, "In this case, the passport number was blurred out, so this content shouldn't have been removed. We've restored the content and apologised to Bella for the mistake (sic.)," an Instagram spokesperson was quoted by Page Six as saying.
