Iran’s Supreme Leader removed from Meta’s Instagram and Facebook – media

Meta has removed Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, from Facebook and Instagram for his overt support of Hamas on social media.

Reportedly, Khamenei used social media to commend Hamas while voicing his skepticism surrounding the Holocaust.

Khamenei’s use of Instagram and Facebook violated Meta’s dangerous organizations and individuals policy, the platform said.

This policy prohibits individuals who praise and support extremist groups or criminal organizations.

Meta commented on the matter – as seen in an article by Time – stating that it doesn’t condone or allow organizations or individuals to “proclaim a violent mission” or engage in violence on its platforms.

The accounts have been taken down “for repeatedly violating our Dangerous Organizations and Individuals policy,” Meta said.

During his time on Meta’s platforms, Khamenei amassed a following of 200,000 on his English Instagram account and more than 5 million followers on his Persian account.

After the October 7th attack, which, according to the Center of Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), was one of the most devastating terrorist attacks since data collection began in the 1970s, an overwhelming amount of individuals called for Khamenei’s accounts to be banned.

“Meta has made a series of important and impactful steps to try and address online antisemitism and pro-terror content in the last few weeks,” CyberWell founder and executive director Tal-Or Cohen Montemayor said.

One of these steps was to de-platform Khamenei from Instagram and Facebook.

A report by Cyberwell claims that “well-produced content, misinformation, and disinformation refuting the scope and nature of the Hamas massacre spread on social media platforms.”

The nonprofit claims to be "a live database of antisemitism" based in Tel Aviv, Israel.

Cyberwell’s report is based on 313 pieces of content collected from Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, X, and YouTube that deny and distort the events of October 7th.

In a recent report, the nonprofit says it identified three major sub-narratives that perpetuate what it claims is the denial and distortion of October 7th.

These narratives include: no acts of rape, the State of Israel orchestrated the violent events, and Israel and the Jews are profiting from the massacre.

“Similar to the Holocaust denial, which is widely recognized as antisemitic and regularly actioned as violating digital policy by most mainstream social media platforms, the denial and distortion of violent atrocities committed against Jewish people, such as the events of October 7th, is antisemitic at the core,” Cyberwell said.

This content collectively garnered 25 million views while only 6% of the dataset was removed.

X alone only removed 2% and is the leading platform that hosts October 7th denial content, the dataset shows.

“The low removal rate of content denying October 7th on social media platforms reveals major gaps in either enforcement of platform policies or in failure to include the massacre on October 7th in the "list" of recognized violent events,” Cyberwell states.