Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei Banned from Facebook, Instagram

Khamenei has been in power in Iran for 35 years and has 5 million followers on Instagram.

Tehran:

Meta said on Thursday it had removed Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s Facebook and Instagram accounts for violating its content policies.

“We have removed these accounts because they repeatedly violated our dangerous organizations and individuals policy,” a Meta spokesperson told AFP.

Although Meta made no mention of Israel’s war with Hamas, the company has been under pressure to ban the leader since Hamas attacked Israel on October 7.

After the attack, Khamenei supported Hamas’ bloody atrocities but denied Iran’s involvement.

He has also publicly supported Palestinian retaliation for Israeli bombings of Gaza and attacks on Red Sea shipping by Yemen’s Houthi rebels.

Khamenei has been in power in Iran for 35 years and has 5 million followers on Instagram.

“To prevent and disrupt real-world harm, we do not allow organizations or individuals that promote violent missions or engage in violence to appear on our platform,” the policy underlying Meta’s decision said.

It also said it would “eliminate the glorification, support and representation of a variety of dangerous organizations and individuals”.

Hamas is designated a foreign terrorist organization by the United States.

Instagram and Facebook are banned in Iran, but Iranians use virtual private networks (VPNs) to evade restrictions and access banned websites or apps, including US-owned Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)