Mehta has suspended Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s Facebook and Instagram accounts, citing “repeated violations” of the company’s “Dangerous Organizations and Individuals Policy.”
Khamenei was banned from popular social media platforms for repeatedly calling for “wiping Israel off the map.”
Iran is a mortal enemy of Israel, which continues to fight Hamas after an October 7 attack by the Palestinian terrorist group that killed nearly 1,200 people.
News that Meta has suspended Khamenei’s Facebook and Instagram accounts First reported by Middle East Eye.
Pro-Israel groups urged social media companies to remove Khamenei’s accounts.
His Persian version of his Instagram page had more than 5.1 million followers, while his English version had more than 204,000 followers.
Company X, formerly known as Twitter, has so far disabled Khamenei’s account. This despot’s site has more than 1 million followers of his.
Facebook, Instagram and X are all blocked in Iran, but Khamenei maintains accounts for audiences outside the country.
The newspaper has contacted Mehta, Mr. X and the Iranian government for comment.
Khamenei called Israel and Zionism “a clear plague on the Islamic world.”
In 2020, Khamenei called Israel a “cancerous tumor” that “will definitely be uprooted and destroyed.”
Immediately after the October 7 attack, Khamenei wrote to X: “If God wills, the cancer of the usurper Zionist regime will be eradicated by the hands of the Palestinian people and resistance forces throughout the region.”
X allowed the post to remain in place, even though it violated the Terms of Service.
“X has determined that it may be in the public’s interest to leave this post accessible,” Mr. X wrote in a note attached to Khamenei’s post.
