Digital Witness: Social Media and the Everyday Resistance of Palestinians Amid Genocide

Prepared by the researche  : Farah Ben Mansour – Faculty of Letters and Humanities, University of Sfax, Tunisia – Laboratory of Approaches to Discourse (LAD)

DAC Democratic Arabic Center GmbH

Journal of Human Resources Development for Studies and Research : Thirty-first Issue – January 2026

A Periodical International Journal published by the “Democratic Arab Center” Germany – Berlin

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Abstract

This paper explores how Palestinians engage in everyday resistance through social media amid systemic violence and genocidal conditions. Drawing on James C. Scott’s theory of everyday resistance and the concept of digital/media witnessing (Couldry, 2010; Chouliaraki, 2015), the study examines how ordinary Palestinians document, narrate, and disseminate their lived experiences online. Using a qualitative approach, social media posts, images, videos, and short-form content from Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok are analyzed to uncover patterns of resistance, acts of witnessing, and the creation of counter-narratives that challenge dominant representations of the conflict. Findings reveal that digital platforms serve as spaces for moral, political, and emotional engagement, allowing Palestinians to assert agency, foster solidarity, and resist erasure in ways that are both subtle and profound. By highlighting the interplay between digital witnessing and everyday resistance, the paper contributes to understanding the transformative potential of social media in contexts of oppression and the role of ordinary citizens as both witnesses and actors of political resistance.

1. Introduction

The Palestinian context is characterized by decades of political conflict, systemic oppression, and violence, which have profoundly affected everyday life, social structures, and cultural practices (Kanafani, 2019; Khalidi, 2020). Amid these conditions, Palestinians are subject to continuous surveillance, restrictions on movement, economic hardships, and ongoing threats of physical violence. These realities are compounded by the global media’s tendency to focus on political events while underrepresenting the lived experiences of ordinary Palestinians. Traditional media often marginalizes Palestinian voices or frames their experiences in ways that reinforce dominant political narratives, leaving everyday suffering and resilience invisible to global audiences (Gillespie, 2017). Consequently, social media has emerged as a crucial platform for Palestinians to document their daily realities, assert their identities, and resist erasure in both local and global arenas.

Platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok have become central to these practices. Facebook allows the sharing of long-form narratives, images, and videos, as well as the creation of events or community pages that facilitate collective engagement. Instagram, with its visual focus, provides a space for symbolic storytelling through posts, reels, and stories that communicate resilience, cultural identity, and community solidarity. TikTok, as a short-form video platform, enables creative storytelling through music, trends, memes, and interactive formats that can go viral, reaching audiences beyond the immediate community (Abidin, 2021; Khamis & Vaughn, 2011). Each platform affords different possibilities for communication, resistance, and witnessing, contributing to a multifaceted digital landscape in which Palestinians can assert agency and engage global audiences.

Social media practices among Palestinians reflect both individual and collective strategies of resistance. Drawing on Scott’s (1985) theory of everyday resistance, acts such as posting personal stories, sharing images, or creating short-form videos constitute micro-acts of defiance against oppressive systems. These acts are subtle, embedded in routine life, and often symbolic rather than overtly confrontational. Simultaneously, Palestinians engage in digital or media witnessing (Couldry, 2010; Chouliaraki, 2015), documenting experiences of violence, oppression, and survival to create moral and political visibility. Witnessing online serves multiple functions: it communicates suffering, mobilizes solidarity, and challenges dominant media narratives that may marginalize Palestinian experiences.

Despite growing scholarship on social media activism, digital witnessing, and political resistance, significant gaps remain in the literature. Most research on Palestinian activism has concentrated on Twitter or large-scale hashtag campaigns, such as #FreePalestine or #GazaUnderAttack, while overlooking Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok, which are widely used for everyday storytelling and community engagement (Lim, 2013; Khalidi, 2020). In addition, studies frequently employ quantitative methods, analyzing engagement metrics, virality, or network structures, rather than qualitatively examining the meanings and significance of everyday digital practices. Furthermore, while everyday resistance and media witnessing have been explored individually, few studies integrate these frameworks to investigate how Palestinians simultaneously resist oppression and bear witness to lived experiences through social media.

This study addresses these gaps by conducting a qualitative analysis of Palestinian social media practices across Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok. By focusing on posts, stories, reels, and short-form videos, the study explores how ordinary Palestinians enact everyday resistance, document experiences of systemic violence, and foster community and global solidarity. The qualitative approach enables an in-depth examination of symbolic content, narrative strategies, and platform-specific affordances, moving beyond simplistic metrics of reach or popularity.

This study is guided by the following research questions:

1. How do Palestinians use social media as a tool for everyday resistance under conditions of systemic oppression and violence?
2. In what ways do Palestinians engage in digital witnessing to document and disseminate their lived experiences?
3. How do acts of digital resistance and witnessing contribute to counter-narratives, moral engagement, and global awareness of Palestinian struggles?

The significance of this research lies in its focus on ordinary Palestinians as agents of resistance and witnesses within digital spaces. By analyzing everyday social media practices, this study highlights the transformative potential of digital platforms in contexts of oppression, illustrating how micro-acts of resistance and witnessing contribute to larger processes of identity formation, solidarity-building, and moral visibility. The study also contributes methodologically by emphasizing qualitative analysis over quantitative metrics, allowing a richer understanding of the meanings, intentions, and symbolic strategies embedded in Palestinian social media content.

The paper is structured as follows: The next section, the literature review, situates this study within existing scholarship on social media activism, digital witnessing, and everyday resistance, highlighting key debates and gaps. The theoretical framework section elaborates on the integration of everyday resistance and digital witnessing as a guiding lens for analysis. The methodology section outlines the qualitative design, data collection, sampling, coding, and ethical considerations. The results and discussion section presents findings from Palestinian social media content across platforms, identifying themes of resistance, witnessing, and the intersection of both. Finally, the conclusion summarizes the study’s contributions, discusses limitations, and suggests avenues for future research.

2. Literature Review

The literature on social media, digital activism, and political resistance has expanded significantly in recent years, reflecting the transformative role of digital platforms in social and political contexts. This review examines three interrelated areas: social media and political activism, digital witnessing, and everyday resistance in digital spaces, with an emphasis on Palestinian experiences. It concludes by identifying gaps in the literature that this study addresses.

2.1. Social media and political activism

Social media platforms have become crucial tools for political activism, particularly in contexts where traditional media is constrained or biased. Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok allow users to communicate experiences, mobilize communities, and challenge dominant narratives (Khamis & Vaughn, 2011; Tufekci, 2017). Facebook, with its long-form posts, community pages, and event-sharing features, supports detailed narrative-based activism, enabling users to provide contextualized accounts of political and social issues (Papacharissi, 2015). In Palestine, Facebook has been used to document daily hardships, share community initiatives, and mobilize local solidarity (Khamis & Vaughn, 2011).

Instagram, in contrast, emphasizes visual storytelling. Studies have shown that Instagram posts, reels, and stories convey symbolic meanings, cultural identity, and emotional engagement, which strengthen both local and transnational solidarity (Lim, 2013; Khalidi, 2020). In conflict contexts, visual content often carries greater emotional weight than textual narratives, allowing marginalized communities to communicate resilience and resistance in ways that transcend language barriers (Papacharissi, 2015; Khamis et al., 2012).

TikTok’s short-form videos have recently emerged as a powerful medium for political messaging and grassroots activism. Research by Abidin (2021) highlights that TikTok allows users to merge humor, music, and trends with political narratives, producing creative and widely shareable content. In the Palestinian context, TikTok has been used to document daily struggles, engage global audiences, and raise awareness about systemic oppression (Abidin, 2021). The platform’s algorithmic design enables viral dissemination, amplifying micro-acts of resistance beyond local communities.

Despite these developments, most research has focused on organized campaigns or hashtag activism (e.g., #FreePalestine) rather than everyday, small-scale digital practices. Studies such as Lim (2013) and Tufekci (2017) emphasize large-scale mobilization but often overlook how ordinary users enact resistance through daily posts, images, or creative videos, leaving a gap in understanding the micro-level dynamics of digital activism.

2.2. Digital and media witnessing

Digital or media witnessing has emerged as a significant theoretical and empirical framework for understanding how individuals document and share experiences of conflict, suffering, and oppression (Couldry, 2010; Chouliaraki, 2015). Unlike traditional witnessing, which often requires professional intermediaries, digital witnessing allows ordinary users to record, disseminate, and contextualize their experiences, thereby creating moral visibility and fostering global engagement.

Couldry (2010) emphasizes that witnessing involves not only observing or documenting events but also communicating experiences to audiences, transforming personal suffering into collective moral concern. Chouliaraki (2015) extends this by analyzing how digital platforms mediate suffering, enabling users to construct narratives that evoke empathy and solidarity. In the Palestinian context, Facebook posts often include personal accounts, videos of everyday life under occupation, or visual documentation of violence, fulfilling this dual role of witnessing and communicating to broader audiences (Gillespie, 2017).

Instagram has been shown to amplify the symbolic and emotional dimensions of witnessing. Khalidi (2020) notes that visual storytelling on Instagram enables Palestinians to communicate resilience, survival strategies, and community solidarity while highlighting structural oppression. Similarly, TikTok facilitates creative witnessing, using short-form videos, text overlays, music, and trends to present complex realities in engaging formats (Abidin, 2021).

These practices demonstrate that digital witnessing can be both personal and political. Users document their own experiences while simultaneously influencing audiences’ perceptions of conflict and injustice (Chouliaraki, 2015; Couldry, 2010). However, research on Palestinian social media has largely focused on documenting extreme events, with less attention given to everyday life, resilience, and subtle forms of witnessing. This oversight leaves a gap in understanding how ordinary acts of witnessing intersect with resistance in daily digital practices.

2.3. Everyday resistance in digital spaces

Scott’s (1985) theory of everyday resistance provides a framework for examining subtle, routine, and often symbolic acts of defiance against power. Scott argues that marginalized communities engage in non-confrontational forms of resistance that cumulatively challenge domination, including gossip, satire, symbolic acts, and small-scale interventions.

In digital contexts, everyday resistance manifests through micro-acts of posting, commenting, sharing, or creating content that challenges dominant narratives or asserts identity. Khamis et al. (2012) highlight that Palestinians use social media to document daily life, critique political authorities, and foster collective solidarity without necessarily engaging in formal protest. Facebook allows detailed narrative resistance, Instagram emphasizes symbolic and visual forms, and TikTok enables playful, creative, and viral resistance that simultaneously entertains and informs (Abidin, 2021).

Visual and symbolic content, such as images of Palestinian flags, traditional dress, destroyed homes, or community gatherings, serves as symbolic resistance, asserting resilience and collective identity. Humor and satire, frequently observed on TikTok, provide psychological relief while subtly critiquing oppressive structures (Abidin, 2021; Lim, 2013). These acts, although informal and dispersed, contribute to moral and political engagement, particularly when combined with witnessing practices.

2.4. Gaps in the literature

Despite extensive scholarship on social media activism, several gaps persist:

1. Platform focus: Most studies emphasize Twitter and large-scale hashtag activism, overlooking the unique affordances of Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok (Khamis & Vaughn, 2011; Abidin, 2021).
2. Micro-level practices: Research tends to examine large campaigns or organized protest movements rather than everyday, individual acts of resistance and witnessing (Lim, 2013; Tufekci, 2017).
3. Integration of frameworks: Few studies integrate everyday resistance and digital witnessing, leaving the dual function of social media—resisting oppression while documenting lived experiences, underexplored.
4. Qualitative analysis: Quantitative studies dominate, focusing on metrics of reach, likes, and virality, while the symbolic and meaningful aspects of Palestinian digital practices remain understudied (Harlow & Harp, 2012).

This study addresses these gaps by conducting a qualitative analysis of Palestinian social media content across Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok, focusing on everyday practices that combine resistance, witnessing, and solidarity-building.

3. Theoretical Framework

The theoretical foundation of this study integrates James C. Scott’s theory of Everyday Resistance (1985) and the concept of digital/media witnessing as articulated by Couldry (2010) and Chouliaraki (2015). This dual framework is particularly suited for analyzing Palestinian social media practices because it captures both the subtle, informal acts of defiance embedded in everyday digital practices and the documentary and moral dimensions of sharing experiences online.

3.1. Everyday resistance: concepts and relevance

Scott’s (1985) theory of everyday resistance provides a lens to understand micro-level, non-confrontational acts of opposition that occur in contexts of oppression. Unlike formal or organized political resistance, everyday resistance is often symbolic, routine, and subtle, embedded in the daily lives of marginalized communities. Scott emphasizes that these acts, though seemingly small or inconsequential individually, collectively challenge power structures and assert agency. Examples include subtle critiques, satire, gossip, symbolic displays, and minor acts of defiance that evade direct confrontation.

In the Palestinian context, everyday resistance has been observed both offline and online. Khamis et al. (2012) highlight that Palestinians engage in routine acts of defiance that challenge occupation structures, such as attending school, maintaining cultural practices, and publicly sharing experiences of survival under oppressive conditions. When transferred to social media, these everyday acts become digitally mediated forms of resistance.

On Facebook, Palestinians post personal narratives, images of daily life, and accounts of hardship, subtly asserting their presence and agency despite systemic violence. These posts are not always explicitly political but serve as acts of narrative resistance, preserving stories that might otherwise be marginalized or ignored (Papacharissi, 2015).

Instagram emphasizes visual symbolism. Sharing images of cultural symbols, Palestinian flags, or community events represents visual resistance, asserting identity and resilience. Reels and stories allow users to present symbolic acts of everyday defiance, such as attending local events, cooking traditional meals, or celebrating cultural milestones despite constraints. Lim (2013) notes that such symbolic acts, when publicly displayed, perform resistance by maintaining cultural and social continuity.

On TikTok, creative short-form content—including humorous videos, satirical commentary, and viral trends—functions as playful resistance, enabling users to subvert oppressive narratives and reach international audiences. Abidin (2021) emphasizes that TikTok’s algorithm amplifies these acts, turning private or local experiences into globally visible forms of defiance. Humor, satire, and creativity, though informal, constitute politically meaningful acts, demonstrating that resistance can occur in unconventional formats and spaces.

In sum, everyday resistance provides a lens to understand the subtleties of Palestinian digital activism, where ordinary actions, symbolic content, and routine postings constitute meaningful forms of defiance, identity assertion, and agency under conditions of structural violence.

3.2. Digital/Media witnessing: concepts and relevance

While everyday resistance captures the subtle defiance and symbolic assertion of agency, digital witnessing provides insight into the documentation, testimony, and moral engagement aspects of Palestinian social media practices. Couldry (2010) defines media witnessing as a process through which individuals use media to make visible experiences of suffering, injustice, and oppression, thereby transforming private experiences into public moral and political concerns. Chouliaraki (2015) further highlights the mediated dimension of suffering, noting that digital platforms allow ordinary users to construct narratives that elicit empathy, solidarity, and moral responsibility from audiences.

In the Palestinian context, digital witnessing is evident when social media posts document violence, destruction, checkpoints, and daily hardships. These posts function as moral testimony, providing evidence of lived experiences and countering dominant narratives that may marginalize Palestinian voices. Gillespie (2017) argues that such witnessing is not purely documentary; it is inherently performative, producing affective engagement and shaping global perceptions of conflict.

Facebook posts often include detailed narratives, images of family life, and documentation of conflict-related hardships, providing contextualized witnessing that conveys both suffering and resilience. Instagram’s visual affordances allow users to craft emotionally resonant stories that highlight symbolic acts of defiance while conveying moral significance (Khalidi, 2020). TikTok, with its creative, short-form, and viral content, enables Palestinians to document events in formats that attract international attention, effectively transforming personal witnessing into global moral engagement (Abidin, 2021).

The theory of digital witnessing underscores that these acts are not passive; they require intentionality and audience orientation. By posting content online, users aim to document reality, assert moral legitimacy, and engage audiences ethically and politically. In the Palestinian case, everyday experiences, attending school, navigating checkpoints, maintaining family routines, become acts of both witnessing and resistance, highlighting the intertwined nature of the two frameworks.

3.3. Integration of everyday resistance and digital witnessing

Combining Scott’s (1985) concept of everyday resistance with digital witnessing provides a holistic lens to understand Palestinian social media practices. Posts, images, and videos simultaneously enact resistance and bear witness. A TikTok video showing children attending school amid conflict both documents hardship (witnessing) and asserts resilience (resistance). An Instagram post of a cultural celebration in a damaged neighborhood communicates continuity of life (resistance) while signaling the moral consequences of structural violence (witnessing).

This integration is particularly relevant for analyzing Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok, as each platform affords different modalities of resistance and witnessing. Facebook’s narrative depth facilitates storytelling, Instagram’s visuality supports symbolic resistance and affective witnessing, and TikTok’s creativity and virality allow for playful, globally visible forms of digital activism. By uniting these frameworks, the study captures both the subtle, informal defiance and the moral, testimonial dimensions of Palestinian social media practices, emphasizing how ordinary users function as both witnesses and agents of resistance.

3.4. Significance of the framework for this Study

This dual theoretical approach addresses key gaps in the literature. While studies of Palestinian social media often focus on organized campaigns, hashtags, or network structures, few explore the qualitative, symbolic, and everyday dimensions of digital activism (Harlow & Harp, 2012; Khamis et al., 2012). Integrating everyday resistance and digital witnessing enables the study to analyze content in terms of meaning, intention, and affect, rather than purely in terms of metrics. It allows a nuanced understanding of how Palestinians navigate oppression through micro-acts, creatively leverage digital platforms, and foster moral engagement among global audiences.

By applying this framework, the study also contributes methodologically, demonstrating how qualitative analysis can reveal intersections of resistance, witnessing, and digital identity formation. It positions Palestinians not only as subjects of conflict but as active participants in digital political and moral discourse, asserting agency and shaping narratives in ways that traditional media or quantitative studies may overlook.

4. Methodology

The methodology for this study is grounded in a qualitative research design, which allows for an in-depth exploration of the symbolic, narrative, and affective dimensions of Palestinian social media practices. Given the research focus on everyday resistance and digital witnessing, a qualitative approach is particularly suitable, as it enables analysis of meaning, intention, and context rather than purely numerical measures such as likes, shares, or follower counts (Braun & Clarke, 2006). This section outlines the research design, data sources, sampling strategy, data collection procedures, analytical framework, and ethical considerations, providing a clear rationale for the methodological choices.

4.1. Research design

A qualitative research design was selected to capture the complexities of social media use among Palestinians, emphasizing the interpretive understanding of content and practices. Social media posts, images, stories, and short-form videos are treated as rich textual and visual data, reflecting both resistance and witnessing. The study employs thematic analysis (Braun & Clarke, 2006) to identify recurring patterns, symbolic acts, and narrative strategies across three platforms: Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok. This design is appropriate because it allows for the examination of platform-specific affordances, the symbolic meanings of content, and the interplay between micro-level acts and broader socio-political contexts.

4.2. Data sources

The study focuses on publicly accessible Palestinian social media content from 2022 to 2025. Three platforms were selected due to their prevalence in Palestinian digital communication and their distinct affordances:

1. Facebook: Allows long-form narratives, community engagement, and sharing of images and videos. Facebook posts often include detailed accounts of personal experiences, family life, and community events, making it suitable for analyzing narrative-based resistance and witnessing (Papacharissi, 2015).
2. Instagram: A visually-oriented platform emphasizing images, stories, and reels. Instagram enables symbolic and affective storytelling, capturing resilience, cultural identity, and communal solidarity (Lim, 2013; Khalidi, 2020).
3. TikTok: Short-form video platform facilitating creative and viral content. TikTok’s algorithm amplifies local experiences to global audiences, making it ideal for analyzing playful yet politically significant forms of resistance and witnessing (Abidin, 2021).

The dataset comprises approximately 100 posts, reels, images, and videos across these platforms, ensuring a balance of textual and visual data for robust qualitative analysis. Only content explicitly related to Palestinian everyday life, occupation-related challenges, and acts of resistance or witnessing was included. Posts unrelated to these themes or that were purely personal/social in nature without socio-political context were excluded.

4.3. Sampling strategy

A purposive sampling strategy was employed to select content that is rich in resistance, witnessing, and narrative significance. This approach ensures the dataset is relevant to the research questions and aligned with the theoretical framework (Creswell & Poth, 2018). Selection criteria included:

• Public accessibility to avoid ethical violations.
• Explicit or implicit documentation of daily life under occupation, including interactions with checkpoints, community events, education, or family life.
• Use of visual, textual, or short-form video content conveying symbolic or affective acts of resistance.
• Inclusion of content that represents a range of digital practices across Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok.

This approach allows for maximum variation sampling, capturing diverse forms of resistance and witnessing across platforms while focusing on ordinary, everyday digital practices.

4.4. Data Collection Procedures

Data collection involved several systematic steps:

1. Identification of relevant profiles and hashtags: Using search terms such as #GazaLife, #Palestine, #EverydayResistance, and Arabic equivalents, public posts and content were identified across the three platforms.
2. Documentation of content: Posts were systematically downloaded or saved, including captions, images, videos, reels, and comments when relevant. Metadata such as date, platform, and type of content were recorded.
3. Initial screening: Content was reviewed for relevance to everyday resistance and digital witnessing, excluding posts that were purely personal, commercial, or unrelated to Palestinian life under systemic violence.

4.5. Analytical framework

The study employs thematic analysis (Braun & Clarke, 2006) to examine patterns and themes in the data. The process involved six steps:

1. Familiarization with data: Reading and reviewing posts multiple times to understand context, content, and narrative style.
2. Generating initial codes: Identifying meaningful units, such as symbolic acts, storytelling elements, visual motifs, or references to oppression.
3. Searching for themes: Grouping codes into potential themes, such as resilience, moral witnessing, symbolic resistance, humor, and community solidarity.
4. Reviewing themes: Refining themes to ensure they accurately represent the data across platforms.
5. Defining and naming themes: Developing clear definitions for each theme and sub-theme, linking them to theoretical constructs (everyday resistance and digital witnessing).
6. Producing the report: Integrating examples, narratives, and visual content into coherent analytical paragraphs for the results and discussion section.

This approach allows for nuanced interpretation of symbolic meaning, narrative structure, and affective content, highlighting how ordinary digital practices function as both resistance and witnessing.

4.6. Ethical considerations

Ethical considerations were central due to the sensitive nature of the data. Guidelines for social media research and internet ethics were followed (Markham & Buchanan, 2012):

• Only publicly accessible content was included.
• Personal identifiers, usernames, or faces were anonymized to protect privacy.
• Sensitive content involving direct depictions of violence was handled cautiously and only described in context without exploitation.
• The analysis emphasizes interpretation and thematic coding rather than sensationalizing or reproducing traumatic content.

These measures ensure that research respects participant privacy, minimizes harm, and adheres to ethical standards for analyzing vulnerable populations online.

4.7. Rationale for qualitative approach

The choice of qualitative research is justified by the study’s focus on meaning-making, symbolic practices, and platform-specific affordances. Quantitative approaches, such as counting likes, shares, or views, cannot capture the subtle symbolic and affective dimensions of resistance and witnessing. A qualitative approach allows for exploration of:

• How everyday acts of resistance are enacted online.
• The moral and testimonial function of digital witnessing.
• Platform-specific affordances that shape the form and impact of posts.
• The intersection of personal experience, symbolic resistance, and moral engagement with global audiences.

This methodological approach aligns with the theoretical framework, enabling an integrated analysis of everyday resistance and digital witnessing across multiple social media platforms.

5. Results and discussion

The analysis of Palestinian social media content across Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok reveals rich practices of everyday resistance and digital witnessing, highlighting the multiple ways in which ordinary Palestinians assert agency, document experiences, and foster both local and global solidarity. By examining textual, visual, and short-form video content, the study identifies several key themes that illuminate how social media functions as a platform for resistance, moral testimony, and identity assertion.

5.1. Everyday resistance on social media

A prominent finding is the prevalence of everyday resistance, which manifests in both subtle and symbolic forms. On Facebook, many users share detailed narratives about daily life under occupation, documenting interactions with checkpoints, schools, markets, and healthcare facilities. For instance, posts describing children walking long distances to attend school despite curfews or checkpoints simultaneously convey hardship and resilience. These posts, while appearing mundane, constitute micro-acts of defiance against the structural violence that seeks to restrict Palestinian mobility and social life (Scott, 1985).

Similarly, Instagram serves as a space for visual and symbolic resistance. Users frequently post images of Palestinian flags, traditional dress, and local landmarks, often accompanied by captions emphasizing resilience and hope. One example includes a photo of a neighborhood gathering amidst damaged buildings, with the caption highlighting the community’s determination to maintain cultural practices. Such posts do not directly confront political authorities but symbolically assert the continuity of Palestinian identity and life, illustrating how everyday resistance can be expressed through symbolism and cultural preservation (Lim, 2013; Khalidi, 2020).

TikTok provides a unique lens into creative and playful forms of resistance, where users employ music, humor, and viral trends to engage global audiences. Short videos showing families maintaining routines, cooking traditional meals, or students completing homework amid conflict highlight both resilience and subtle defiance. Humor and satire, common in TikTok content, often critique oppressive structures indirectly, allowing users to express resistance without exposing themselves to direct political repercussions (Abidin, 2021). These playful acts serve dual purposes: they provide psychological relief for the creators and audiences while subtly challenging narratives of power and domination.

Across all three platforms, everyday resistance frequently occurs in micro-gestures embedded in ordinary life, including attending school, maintaining cultural practices, and documenting local community events. These acts collectively contribute to a continuous and distributed form of opposition that aligns with Scott’s (1985) conceptualization of everyday resistance as subtle, routine, and symbolic.

5.2. Digital witnessing and moral engagement

In addition to resistance, Palestinian social media content functions as a form of digital witnessing, documenting experiences of violence, structural oppression, and constrained living conditions. Facebook posts often include first-person accounts or family narratives, chronicling incidents such as home demolitions, road closures, or interactions with occupation forces. By sharing these stories, users provide moral testimony, inviting audiences to recognize, empathize with, and respond to suffering (Couldry, 2010; Chouliaraki, 2015).

Instagram enhances the affective dimension of witnessing through visual storytelling. For example, images of destroyed homes, community rebuilding efforts, or children playing amidst rubble not only document hardship but also communicate resilience and hope. These posts are carefully curated to elicit emotional engagement, drawing attention to the moral and human consequences of systemic violence. This dual function, simultaneously documenting suffering and asserting agency, demonstrates the intersection of witnessing and resistance on digital platforms (Gillespie, 2017; Khalidi, 2020).

TikTok expands the reach of digital witnessing by transforming personal or local experiences into globally visible narratives. Short-form videos documenting military checkpoints, damaged infrastructure, or restricted access to essential services are frequently accompanied by text overlays, music, or voiceovers that contextualize the events. These videos often achieve wide dissemination due to TikTok’s algorithm, highlighting how digital platforms can amplify marginalized voices and engage international audiences in moral reflection and solidarity (Abidin, 2021).

Collectively, these findings underscore that Palestinian social media practices are not only forms of communication but also performative acts of witnessing. By documenting everyday experiences and presenting them in emotionally resonant formats, Palestinians transform ordinary digital platforms into moral and political arenas, where audiences are invited to bear witness, reflect, and engage with issues of injustice and oppression.

5.3. Intersection of everyday resistance and digital witnessing

A key insight from the analysis is the intersection between everyday resistance and digital witnessing. Many posts simultaneously enact resistance while bearing witness to lived experiences, blurring the lines between personal storytelling and political activism. For instance, an Instagram reel showing children attending school despite curfew restrictions both documents their struggle (digital witnessing) and asserts resilience against oppressive conditions (everyday resistance). Similarly, a TikTok video depicting a family cooking meals amid destroyed surroundings functions as both witnessing hardship and asserting agency in maintaining cultural life.

This intersection is especially significant because it demonstrates how ordinary users occupy multiple roles: they are witnesses, agents of resistance, cultural narrators, and moral interlocutors. These dual functions amplify the impact of social media content, allowing ordinary Palestinians to assert presence, challenge erasure, and engage audiences ethically and politically (Couldry, 2010; Scott, 1985).

Furthermore, platform affordances shape how these dual functions are realized. Facebook’s long-form narratives support detailed storytelling, Instagram’s visual tools emphasize symbolic resistance and emotional resonance, and TikTok’s creative and viral features allow for playful, globally visible acts of both resistance and witnessing. The combination of these platforms enables Palestinians to navigate multiple forms of engagement simultaneously, reaching local, regional, and international audiences.

5.4. Community solidarity and identity formation

Social media also functions as a space for community solidarity and identity formation, reinforcing collective resistance and shared moral responsibility. Posts that highlight local gatherings, community rebuilding efforts, or family celebrations amidst conflict create a sense of communal resilience, fostering solidarity among Palestinian audiences and beyond. Instagram, in particular, emphasizes visual markers of identity, including traditional clothing, Palestinian flags, and cultural symbols, which strengthen cultural continuity while resisting erasure (Khalidi, 2020).

On TikTok, collaborative content, duets, and viral challenges allow users to engage in collective digital practices, reinforcing community bonds and amplifying shared experiences. These interactions not only enhance solidarity but also extend resistance and witnessing to broader networks, including international audiences who engage through comments, shares, and advocacy. Such practices demonstrate how digital platforms mediate both micro-level individual agency and macro-level collective identity.

5.5. Implications for understanding digital resistance

The findings suggest that Palestinian social media practices challenge traditional notions of activism and political engagement. Resistance does not only occur through formal protests or organized campaigns; it is embedded in everyday life, storytelling, and creative expression online. Digital witnessing complements these acts by documenting experiences, mobilizing moral engagement, and fostering global awareness. Together, these practices demonstrate that digital platforms are active arenas for both resistance and moral testimony, enabling ordinary Palestinians to navigate complex socio-political realities while asserting agency and identity.

By integrating the theoretical frameworks of everyday resistance and digital witnessing, the study highlights the synergistic relationship between symbolic defiance and moral documentation. Social media content functions as both a personal and collective archive of experiences, preserving narratives of oppression, resilience, and hope that might otherwise remain invisible.

5.6. Summary

In conclusion, the results demonstrate that Palestinian social media practices on Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok encompass multiple forms of everyday resistance and digital witnessing. Key themes include:

• Everyday resistance: Subtle, symbolic, and routine acts asserting agency and resilience.
• Digital witnessing: Documentation of suffering and hardship to foster moral and political engagement.
• Intersection of resistance and witnessing: Posts that simultaneously document oppression and assert agency.
• Community solidarity and identity formation: Strengthening collective identity and transnational moral engagement.

These findings underscore that social media is not merely a communication tool but a transformative platform, allowing ordinary Palestinians to resist oppression, bear witness, and foster solidarity locally and globally. By analyzing platform-specific affordances and content strategies, the study illuminates the complex, nuanced, and creative ways Palestinians navigate oppression in digital spaces, contributing to broader understandings of online activism, resistance, and moral witnessing.

6. Conclusion

This study set out to explore how Palestinians use social media platforms, Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok, as spaces for everyday resistance and digital witnessing amid systemic violence and oppression. Through a qualitative analysis of 100 publicly accessible posts, stories, reels, and short-form videos from 2022 to 2025, the research examined how ordinary Palestinians document their lived experiences, assert agency, and engage both local and global audiences. By integrating the frameworks of everyday resistance (Scott, 1985) and digital witnessing (Couldry, 2010; Chouliaraki, 2015), the study provides a comprehensive understanding of the ways in which digital platforms mediate resistance, moral testimony, and identity formation.

6.1. Summary of the major findings

The study’s findings reveal several interrelated patterns:

1. Everyday Resistance: Palestinians engage in micro-level, symbolic, and routine acts of defiance across social media. On Facebook, detailed narrative posts document interactions with occupation forces, restricted mobility, and daily hardships, functioning as subtle acts of resistance. Instagram emphasizes visual and symbolic resistance, with posts highlighting cultural identity, community gatherings, and resilience. TikTok facilitates creative, playful, and viral resistance, using music, humor, and trends to challenge oppression indirectly. Collectively, these practices demonstrate that resistance extends beyond formal political actions into the everyday lives of ordinary Palestinians (Scott, 1985; Khamis et al., 2012).
2. Digital Witnessing: Palestinian social media content also serves as a form of moral testimony, documenting experiences of violence, restricted access to resources, and systemic oppression. Facebook narratives, Instagram visual storytelling, and TikTok videos convey both suffering and resilience, engaging audiences ethically and politically (Couldry, 2010; Chouliaraki, 2015). Witnessing is not merely documentation; it is performative, designed to elicit empathy, solidarity, and awareness among local and global audiences.
3. Intersection of Resistance and Witnessing: Many social media posts simultaneously enact everyday resistance and bear witness to lived experiences. Examples include Instagram reels of children attending school under curfew, TikTok videos of families maintaining routines amidst conflict, and Facebook posts documenting community rebuilding efforts. These dual functions highlight the complexity of Palestinian digital practices, where symbolic defiance and moral testimony reinforce one another.
4. Community Solidarity and Identity Formation: Social media facilitates collective identity formation and transnational solidarity, with content emphasizing cultural continuity, communal gatherings, and shared experiences. Collaborative TikTok content, Instagram visual narratives, and Facebook community interactions strengthen local solidarity while connecting Palestinian experiences to international audiences, demonstrating how digital platforms serve as both local and global arenas of engagement.

6.2. Theoretical contributions

This study contributes to scholarship in several key ways:

1. Integration of Everyday Resistance and Digital Witnessing: By combining Scott’s (1985) concept of everyday resistance with the framework of digital witnessing (Couldry, 2010; Chouliaraki, 2015), the study demonstrates how micro-acts of defiance and moral testimony coexist and reinforce one another in digital spaces. This integration provides a nuanced lens for analyzing Palestinian social media practices, emphasizing both symbolic agency and moral engagement.
2. Platform-Specific Analysis: Unlike previous research that often focuses on Twitter or large-scale hashtag activism (Lim, 2013; Tufekci, 2017), this study highlights Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok, illustrating the unique affordances of each platform in mediating resistance and witnessing. Facebook supports detailed narratives, Instagram emphasizes visual and symbolic storytelling, and TikTok facilitates creative, viral content that reaches global audiences. This platform-specific analysis enriches understanding of how digital affordances shape resistance and witnessing practices.
3. Qualitative, Micro-Level Perspective: By focusing on qualitative content rather than quantitative metrics, the study captures the symbolic, narrative, and affective dimensions of Palestinian social media practices. This approach allows for an in-depth understanding of how ordinary users navigate systemic violence, assert agency, and communicate experiences ethically and politically.

6.3. Practical implications

The findings have significant implications for both activists and policymakers:

1. Empowering Digital Activism: Social media platforms offer accessible avenues for ordinary Palestinians to participate in resistance, document experiences, and foster global solidarity. Understanding how micro-acts of resistance and witnessing function can inform strategies for digital advocacy, humanitarian outreach, and transnational engagement.
2. Platform Design and Support: Recognizing the ways Palestinians creatively use Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok can guide platform designers and social media companies to support ethical visibility, prevent censorship, and ensure that marginalized voices can share experiences safely and effectively.
3. Global Awareness and Moral Engagement: Digital witnessing amplifies the moral and political visibility of oppressed communities. International organizations, media outlets, and educators can leverage these insights to better understand and disseminate grassroots experiences, fostering empathy and solidarity across borders.

6.4. Limitations

While this study provides significant insights, several limitations should be acknowledged:

1. Public Content Only: Private messages, closed groups, and ephemeral content such as disappearing stories were excluded, potentially omitting additional forms of resistance and witnessing.
2. Interpretive Subjectivity: The qualitative approach relies on researcher interpretation, which, although systematic, may introduce bias.
3. Algorithmic Influence: Social media algorithms may influence visibility, engagement, and selection of posts, which can affect the representativeness of the dataset.
4. Temporal Focus: The study analyzed posts from 2022–2025, and patterns may differ outside this period or during periods of heightened conflict or political change.

Despite these limitations, the study provides a robust, contextually grounded analysis of Palestinian digital practices, emphasizing symbolic, moral, and narrative dimensions.

6.5. Recommendations for future research

1. Longitudinal Studies: Future research could examine changes in Palestinian social media practices over time, particularly during periods of intensified conflict, to understand how everyday resistance and digital witnessing evolve.
2. Private and Ephemeral Content: Incorporating private messages, closed groups, or disappearing stories may reveal additional dimensions of resistance and witnessing that are inaccessible through public posts.
3. Comparative Studies: Comparing Palestinian digital practices with other contexts of occupation, displacement, or systemic oppression could enrich understanding of cross-cultural patterns of digital resistance and witnessing.
4. Integration with Quantitative Metrics: Combining qualitative analysis with quantitative measures (e.g., engagement, reach, or virality) may provide a more comprehensive understanding of impact and audience reception.

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