Instagram apologises to Hadid for deleting post

Facebook says it was a ‘mistake’ and had nothing to do with Palestine reference

Instagram has apologised to Bella Hadid for taking down a post where she expressed pride in her father’s birthplace of Palestine.

On Tuesday, the 23-yearold model blasted the social media platform after they sent her a removal notice claiming that her post went against “community guidelines”.

The post in question included an image of real estate mogul dad Mohammad Hadid’s long-expired passport, with the passport number blurred. “Are we not allowed to be Palestinian on Instagram?” Hadid questioned.

A Facebook spokesperson reached out to Gulf News to clarify their “mistake”.

“To protect the privacy of our community, we don’t allow people to post personal information, such as passport numbers, on Instagram. 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,” the spokesperson said yesterday.

Hadid earlier called out Instagram, which is owned by Facebook, for taking down her post. “Instagram removed my story that only said ‘My baba and his birthplace of Palestine’ with a photograph of his American passport,” she wrote.

“Are we not allowed to be

Are we not allowed to be Palestinian on Instagram? This, to me, is bullying … You can’t erase history by silencing people.”

Bella Hadid | Model

Palestinian on Instagram? This, to me, is bullying … You can’t erase history by silencing people. It doesn’t work like that,” she added.

She re-posted the deleted scan of her father’s passport, which shows him being born in Palestine on November 6, 1948.