For clarification, I myself support the existence of Palestine and the possibility of a two-state solution.
Ever since October 7, many Palestinians have been creating GoFundMes and turning to various social media platforms such as TikTok and Instagram so they can receive money for basic necessities and to evacuate them and their families out of Gaza. By now, everyone on social media has probably seen at least one of these videos. When someone is in a desperate situation, they may do or say anything to try to get engagement and I can absolutely sympathize with this. It’s heartbreaking to see civilians being impacted by war, regardless on which side someone is on.
Of course, many pro-Palestinian activists abroad wish to try and help spread the word so people can collectively donate for these families. I consider this to be a noble cause. However, the manner in which these activists try to ramp up their engagement is sickening, especially towards individuals who suffer from things such as religious trauma, OCD, psychosis, and anxiety. When people hear the same things repeatedly to them, especially relating to an issue that they are passionate about, it in a way becomes a reality for them.
Over the past year, I have heard these activists say really distressing things to try to guilttrip people into compulsively engage with their content. This is a short list of the things that I have heard people say.
- “If you see this, Allah / God is watching you.”(or something along the lines of that, often implying or explicitly stating these things.) They usually imply or state that you will be judged before Allah / God / Jesus based on the actions you take, even though some people who frequently engage may feel like they’re resented by gods already.
- “If you skip me, you kill me. / If you skip this video, you are complicit in these people’s deaths.”
- “If you skip this video, I hope you get food poisoning.” (This opening statement actually compelled me to make this post.) Basically, they say that if you don’t interact with their videos and send money to these people, something bad will happen to you.
Even though I try to spread information sometimes relating to Palestine, I have had to block certain activist creators because they kept appearing on my feed saying the most heinous things for engagement.
I understand that what civilians in Palestine are experiencing is another level of hell, but the majority of people on social media have nothing to do with this specific conflict. If someone ever dares try to question anything relating to the pro-Palestinian movement from within, they get shut down and are basically gaslit into believing that their concerns aren’t important because there are ‘worse things going on.’
Simultaneously, people in these pro-Palestinian spaces are fed with the illusion that they are directly responsible for heavily influencing world events, almost as if they consider themselves to be the ‘main character.’ Because of this, these outlandish opening claims on such videos are easily believed and people compulsively engage. Unfortunately, the algorithm senses this and pushes more and more Palestinian GoFundMe videos onto people’s feeds, trapping them in an endless cycle unless they ignore every single video that pops up and feel the guilt that comes with such a decision.
Additionally, I suspect some of these Palestinian accounts to be bots / scammers. I recently made a Bluesky account and not even a day after (without interacting with any sort of Palestinian content), someone “from Gaza” managed to follow me. On Instagram, countless people “from Gaza” have followed me when I have barely made a single comment on any post. I don’t make Palestinian videos either, so I’m really confused as to how these people are finding my account.
This just makes this even more concerning. Someone could easily lie and pretend they’re from Gaza by downloading videos from other ACTUAL Palestinians and uploading them to their own platforms, and no one would know the difference.
I’m making this post because this is the only place where nuance is actually allowed and discussed. I have seen no one talk about this so far. Thank you.
