Bella Hadid Said Instagram Removed Her Palestine-Related Post

Bella Hadid is famously proud of her Palestinian heritage. She's marched in support of the "Free Palestine" movement and has regularly posted about her feelings about Palestinian liberation to Instagram. Hadid is Palestinian by way of her father, real estate developer Mohammed Hadid; she recently shared a photo of his passport, making note of his birth place. "My baba and his birthplace of Palestine," she wrote alongside his passport photo. It was a sweet and seemingly innocuous post (she loves her dad!), but according to Instagram, it violated Community Guidelines against bullying and was promptly removed. Hadid, naturally, was not having it.

"Exactly what part of me being proud of my father's birthplace of Palestine is 'bullying, harassment, graphic, or sexual nudity'?" she asked. "Are we not allowed to be Palestinian on Instagram? This, to me, is bullying." She delivered the final blow: "You can't erase history by silence people. It doesn't work like that." What an eloquent way to say get bent, Instagram!

According to Instagram, the deletion was just a mix up. In a statement to People, a spokesperson for Facebook — which owns Instagram in case you were unaware! — apologized and clarified that the post was not removed because of Hadid's reference to Palestine. "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," read the statement. "We've restored the content and apologize to Bella for the mistake."