Twitter Acts as Israel’s Enforcer by Blocking Tweet

Image by Nikki Casey
Twitter blocked users in the Jewish state from reading a tweet that violated Israeli law, although the Israeli government denied it had asked the site to do so.
Twitter informed American blogger Richard Silverstein that a tweet he wrote violated Israeli law and would therefore be blocked for social media users in the Jewish state, +972 Magazine reported.
A spokesperson for the Justice Ministry denied Israel had asked Twitter to hide the tweet from users in Israel, and that it had only “brought the violation of the gag order to the company’s attention.”
“This is part of a larger orchestrated campaign to bring all media in Israel to heel,” Silverstein told Vocativ. Silverstein noted in particular “attacks on Palestinians using social media to oppose occupation.”
But the tweet in question, which was written in Hebrew, addressed an alleged sexual assault by an employee of Israel’s justice ministry on his daughter — not the occupation — identifying the employee by name. It may have been violating a law on identifying minors, Vocativ reported.
Twitter did not comment on the specific case but a spokesperson told Vocativ that “if we receive a valid and properly scoped request from an authorized entity, it may be necessary to reactively withhold access to certain content in a particular country from time to time.”
Following a rise in terror attacks committed by Palestinians and Israeli-Arabs, the Israeli government has clamped down on online incitement to violence.
Facebook said it was working with the Israeli government to limit content promoting violence and terrorism.
“There is no room for content that promotes violence, direct threats, terrorist or hate speeches on our platform,” said a spokesperson for the social networking site, according to Vocativ. “We have regular dialogue with the [Israeli] government on these issues.”
Contact Josefin Dolsten at [email protected] or on Twitter, @JosefinDolsten
The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.
Readers like you make it all possible. We’ve started our Passover Fundraising Drive, and we need 1,800 readers like you to step up to support the Forward by April 21. Members of the Forward board are even matching the first 1,000 gifts, up to $70,000.
This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism, because every dollar goes twice as far.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
2X match on all Passover gifts!
Most Popular
- 1
Film & TV What Gal Gadot has said about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict
- 2
News A Jewish Republican and Muslim Democrat are suddenly in a tight race for a special seat in Congress
- 3
Fast Forward The NCAA men’s Final Four has 3 Jewish coaches
- 4
Culture How two Jewish names — Kohen and Mira — are dividing red and blue states
In Case You Missed It
-
Fast Forward ‘Another Jewish warrior’: Fine wins special election for U.S. House seat
-
Fast Forward A Chicagoan wanted to protest Elon Musk — and put a swastika sticker on a Jewish man’s Tesla
-
Fast Forward NY attorney general orders car wash to stop ripping off Jews with antisemitic ‘Passover special’
-
Fast Forward Cory Booker proclaims, ‘Hineni’ — I am here — 19 hours into anti-Trump Senate speech
-
Shop the Forward Store
100% of profits support our journalism
Republish This Story
Please read before republishing
We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines.
You must comply with the following:
- Credit the Forward
- Retain our pixel
- Preserve our canonical link in Google search
- Add a noindex tag in Google search
See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.
To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.