BBC and the Associated Press reported the account was linked to Iran’s supreme leader and notes that it was retweeted by Khamenei’s Farsi account. A Twitter spokesman said that the tweet had violated the company’s “abusive behavior policy,” and the account had violated its “manipulation and spam policy. He said Twitter determined the account was “fake,” without providing any transparency regarding how it came to the conclusion.”
The backtracking occurred, even after the image first appeared on a Persian-language Twitter feed that carried a link to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s website. “Revenge will certainly happen at the right time,” Khamenei had declared.
“Iran widely blocks social media platforms and censors others. While top officials have completely open access to social media, Iran’s youth and tech-savvy citizens use proxy servers or other workarounds to bypass the controls.” Associated Press reported.
Twitter banned President Trump for ‘alleged incitement of violence’, while allowing U.S. government officials to routinely stoke unrest during the pandemic lockdowns. Additionally, Twitter defended allowing over 70,000 active ISIS accounts, multiple Iranian elite government official accounts, and multiple (real and fake) accounts linked directly to Ayatollah Khamenei’s website. Underneath the website pictures were remarks by Khamenei.
