DUBAI, UAE (Twitter) – Twitter said on Friday it had definitively banned what it called a “fake” account that was thought to be connected to the office of Iran’s supreme leader, shortly after a post that it seemed to threaten former President Donald Trump.
In the image published on Thursday afternoon by the account linked to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Trump is seen playing golf in the shadow of a giant drone, with the caption “Revenge is safe” written in Farsi.
In response to a request for comment from The Associated Press, a Twitter spokesman said the tweet violated the company’s “abusive behavior policy” and that the account had violated its “manipulation and spam policy.” .
In a subsequent statement, he said Twitter had determined the account was “fake,” without detailing how it came to the conclusion.
The suspended account, @khamenei_site, linked to Khamenei’s own website and frequently posted excerpts from his speeches and other official content.
Other accounts that were thought to be tied to Khamenei’s office that did not tweet the photo of the golf drone, including his main account in English, remained active. The photo had also featured prominently on the Supreme Leader’s website.
Earlier this month, Facebook and Twitter cut Trump off their platforms for allegedly inciting the assault on the U.S. Capitol, an unprecedented move that underscored the immense power of tech giants in regulating speech. on their platforms. Activists soon urged companies to apply their policies equally to political figures around the world to combat hate speech and content that encourages violence.
The headline warning referred to Khamenei’s statements last month before the first anniversary of the U.S. drone strike that killed General Qassem Soleimani of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard in Baghdad. In his speech, Khamenei did not call Trump by his name, but reiterated the vow of revenge against those who ordered and executed the attack on Soleimani.
“Without a doubt, revenge will happen at the right time,” Khamenei had stated.
Iran blocks social media websites such as Facebook and Twitter and censors others. While senior officials have free access to social media, young people and citizens with technological knowledge of Iran use proxy servers or other solutions to circumvent controls.
Shortly after the Twitter ban ignited calls to address the tweets of other political leaders, the company withdrew a message for another Khamenei-linked account that was pushing a COVID-vaccine conspiracy theory. 19.
Khamenei, who has the final say on all state issues in Iran, had claimed that virus vaccines imported from the United States or Britain were “completely unreliable.”