Pro-Palestinian Protesters Demonstrate Outside Meta Offices In New York City

A large contingent of pro-Palestinian protesters marched through New York City on Monday, reportedly stopping in front of Meta's Manhattan offices to object to alleged Instagram bans on two student groups.

Live video streamed on YouTube showed demonstrators waving Palestinian flags, carrying banners, banging on drums and chanting as they passed through Manhattan's Turtle Bay neighborhood.

"While you're eating, kids are bleeding!" demonstrators shouted at restaurant patrons seated at sidewalk tables.

At one point, a man was shown running with a lit flare, and marchers had to walk around a device billowing red smoke in the street.

Later, the group was reportedly stopped by a line of police officers across Second Avenue in Midtown.

"We are being prevented from lawfully protesting in front of the United Nations!" a woman said.

The demonstration began in downtown Union Square Park, where the International Youth and Students for Social Equality in New York and New Jersey snapped a photo of a table it had set up.

"As campuses reopen, we're fighting for students and youth to turn toward building a socialist movement in the working class independent of the Democratic Party and the union bureacracies [sic]," the group said on X.

Protesters reportedly marched from the park to the Meta's nearby offices on Park Avenue South to demonstrate there.

Last week, the World Socialist Web Site reported that Instagram had shut down the accounts of the Columbia University chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine and the New York University People's Solidarity Coalition.

Both groups were involved in pro-Palestinian encampments that were set up at the schools earlier this year, the WSWS said.

A Palestinian American software engineer sued Meta early this summer alleging wrongful termination and discrimination for what he said were his efforts to address the suppression of Palestinian posts on Instagram.

The company told the Washington post that the employee was "dismissed for violating Meta's data access policies, which we make clear to employees will result in immediate termination."