instagram us government iran
Iran April 18, 2019
Instagram Acts as Arm of US Govt, Bans Top Iranian Officials After IRGC
'Terrorist' Designation
Top Iranian government officials were suspended from Facebook-owned
Instagram just hours after Trump dubbed the IRGC a "terrorist" organization.
By Ben Norton
A curious decision by Instagram, which is owned by social media giant
Facebook, has called into question its independence from the US government.
The company has banned several top Iranian officials, including Supreme
Leader Ayatollah Khamenei, from its photo-sharing platform.
This disappearance of foreign government officials by American tech
corporations is the latest episode in a global information war.
On April 15, the administration of President Donald Trump designated Iran's
military wing the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) as a "terrorist"
organization. Less than a day later, Instagram suspended the accounts of
several Iranian officials, from military commanders to politicians with no
ties to the IRGC.
Iranian Major General Qasem Soleimani was among those banned. (Soleimani
drew public attention in November for using his Instagram account to
comically respond to Trump's threat of sanctions with a Game of
Thrones-style meme.) IRGC commander-in-chief Mohammad Ali Jafari also saw
his Instagram account suspended, as did Brigadier General Mohammad Pakpour.
Instagram additionally banned Iranian officials with no connection to the
IRGC, including Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, the former mayor of capital
Tehran, who has not worked for the IRGC for nearly two decades. It even
removed the page of Ezzatollah Zarghami, a former government minister and
ex-director of Iran's state media broadcaster; and the chief of Iran's
police, Kamal Hadianfar.
The news site Al-Monitor reported, "Accusations that Instagram is practicing
double standards and advancing a political agenda gained further momentum
when the ban targeted non-IRGC figures, among them Chief Justice Ebrahim
Raisi, a conservative cleric who lost the 2017 presidential race to Hassan
Rouhani."
IRGC Instagram accounts were popular among Iranians, particularly during the
recent floods that saw several cities plunged into crisis. Al-Monitor noted,
"Many Instagram users have praised the IRGC's ongoing involvement in flood
relief across Iran."
A pro-government newspaper, Javan, responded to the suspensions by
sarcastically dubbing the social media company "Insta-Trump," Al-Monitor
reported.
Instagram: "We work with the appropriate government authorities"
This wave of censorship bolsters journalist Yasha Levine's argument that US
tech corporations act as "privatized instruments of American geopolitical
power."
Iran's minister of information and communications technology, Mohammad-Javad
Azari Jahromi, condemned the Instagram censorship, tweeting, "When you tear
out a man's tongue, you aren't proving him a liar, you're only telling the
world that you FEAR what he might say."
An Instagram spokesperson told the US government-funded Voice of America
(VOA) that the bans were done to abide by "the constraints of U.S. sanctions
laws." The spokesperson added, "We work with the appropriate government
authorities to ensure we meet our legal obligations, including those
relating to the recent designation of the IRGC."
Instagram did not however explain why it also suspended the accounts of
Iranian officials who do not work with the IRGC.
This is not the first time American social media corporations have banned
Iranians. In August, The Grayzone reported on Twitter's suspension of an
Iranian student journalist, Sayed Mousavi, who did not work for the
government, and was censored as part of a larger coordinated crackdown by
Twitter, Google (which owns YouTube), and Facebook (which owns Instagram).
"What worries me is that, I was just a student doing my bit of what I can do
to journalism to counter just a little bit of the huge amount of
disinformation being put about my country," Mousavi told The Grayzone at the
time.
He added, "It's really a burden upon us, different anti-Zionist, different
anti-imperialist groups, to make our voices heard. We need to diversify our
platforms."
Israel, Saudi media, MEK, US neocons gloat after Instagram suspensions
The Israeli government gloated after Instagram's ban of the top Iranian
officials. On its official Persian-language account, Israel cited a proverb
that roughly translates to, "You reap what you sow," adding
#TerroristGuardCorps.
Numerous anti-Iran media outlets, including Saudi state propaganda and
pro-Israel websites, also happily reported on the temporary suspension of
the English-language Instagram account of Iran's Ayatollah Khamenei on April
16. (Khamenei's profile was restored after the short ban. The accounts of
the IRGC commanders and other politicians remain suspended.)
Israel's right-wing Jerusalem Post newspaper drew an explicit connection
between the censorship and Trump's "terrorist" designation.
VOA, the US government outlet, boasted in a report, "With 800,000 followers,
the Instagram page of the commander of Iran's elite Quds Force was among the
most popular pages of Iranian officials on the photo-sharing website."
The American front group for the People's Mujahedin of Iran (MEK), a
US-backed violent cult that has spent decades trying to overthrow the
Iranian government, also praised Instagram's censorship.
For years, the MEK was listed as a US-designated terrorist organization,
until the State Department of Secretary Hillary Clinton formally removed the
label in 2012.
Today, the MEK operates freely on social media, running numerous accounts
for several front groups. Al Jazeera revealed that the cult even oversees a
massive troll farm in Albania.
Opposition outlet Iran International TV, which is funded by sources closely
linked to Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, was among the
sites that celebrated the banning of Khamenei's senior adviser Ali Akbar
Velayati.
The neoconservative anti-Iran lobby group United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI)
was delighted to see the suspensions as well.
Instagram's censorship inspired a campaign by anti-Iran groups to pressure
Facebook, Twitter, and other platforms to ban more Iranian officials.
Opposition figures have pushed the #TwitterBan4IRGC hashtag, and have
particularly targeted Iran's prominent foreign minister, Javad Zarif.
Alireza Nader, a US government-linked opposition activist and head of the
DC-based opposition group New Iran, called on Twitter to ban Zarif.
Ben Norton