The Daily Telegraph - Saturday
Iran’s supreme leader kicked off Facebook and Instagram
INSTAGRAM and Facebook have removed the accounts of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader, amid the growing conflict in the Middle East.
Khamenei, who has frequently used social media to praise Hamas and question the existence of the Holocaust, was removed for violating Meta’s dangerous organisations and individuals policy, the company said.
He remains on Twitter, now known as X, where he posts frequently.
A Meta spokesman said: “We have removed these accounts for repeatedly violating our dangerous organisations and individuals policy.”
The policy bans glorifying or supporting dangerous organisations such as terrorist groups or criminal gangs.
Khamenei had more than 200,000 fol- lowers on his English language Instagram account and more than 5m on his Persian language account.
Instagram and Facebook are officially banned in Iran although many people use virtual private networks to evade the blocks. Khamenei has called for Israel to be “wiped off the map” and questioned whether the Holocaust ever happened. He has also supported Houthi attacks on ships in the Red Sea.
Since Hamas attacked Israel on Oct 7, calls to ban Khamenei from social media have increased. Iran has denied involvement in the attacks but officials have since praised Hamas.
Khamenei, who has been in charge since 1989, retains 1m followers on his English language X account.
After Khamenei praised the Oct 7 attacks, the site hid his tweet behind a warning screen but did not take it down, saying it had determined that “it may be in the public’s interest for the post to remain accessible”.
Elon Musk, X’s owner, has said that the company has a “United Nations rule”, which exempts officials of governments recognised by the UN from being suspended “in the interests of maintaining international communications”.
Khamenei’s presence on X has been a source of controversy. Under its previous ownership, Republicans accused the company of double standards when it banned Donald Trump’s account but allowed Khamenei’s to remain online.