Iran's Supreme Leader Banned from Twitter Over Post Vowing Revenge Against Trump
Twitter said on Friday that it had permanently banned an account connected to the office of Iran’s supreme leader, shortly after the account posted a photo showing former President Donald Trump playing golf in the shadow of a giant drone.
A Twitter spokesman said the tweet had violated the company’s “abusive behavior policy” and that the account had violated its “manipulation and spam policy, specifically the creation of fake accounts.”
Other accounts thought to be tied to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s office remained active.
Earlier this month, Facebook and Twitter banned Trump from their platforms for allegedly inciting the storming of the U.S. Capitol, an unprecedented step that underscored the immense power of tech giants in censoring speech on their platforms.
The image posted late Thursday by the account linked to Khamenei appeared to call for an attack on Trump, with the caption “Revenge is certain” written in Farsi.
The warning may have referred to Khamenei’s remarks last month ahead of the first anniversary of the U.S. drone strike that killed Iranian general Qassem Soleimani in Baghdad.
In his speech, Khamenei reiterated a vow for vengeance against those who ordered and executed the attack on Soleimani.
“Revenge will certainly happen at the right time,” Khamenei had declared.
Iran blocks social media websites like Facebook and Twitter, and censors others.
Soon after Trump’s ban from Twitter prompted calls for the company to equally target tweets from other political leaders, the company took down a post by a different Khamenei-linked account that claimed that COVID-19 vaccines imported from the U.S. or Britain were “completely untrustworthy.”
The Western Journal has reviewed this Associated Press story and may have altered it prior to publication to ensure that it meets our editorial standards.
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