Media is abuzz about a Twitter account supportive of Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei being permanently banned, but the @Khamenei.ir account remains active – unlike the permanently suspended account of former President Donald Trump.
A video has been circulating Twitter depicting the assassination of Trump on a Florida golf course, and that video remains active on the Khamenei.ir website and @Khamenei.ir remains active on Twitter, despite the platform banning @khamenei_site in January 2021 and @khameneisite Saturday.
"The account (@Khamenei_Site) has been permanently suspended for violating our ban evasion policy," according to a Twitter spokesperson to Newsmax.
The @Khamenei_Site was permanently suspended for violating its platform manipulation and spam policy, specifically the creation of fake accounts, according to Twitter.
The @khamenei_ir and the various language versions of the account are not affected at this time, Twitter added.
The glorification of violence against the former president by Khamenei-tied accounts has received a far less harsh response from Twitter's terms of service police than the sitting U.S. president.
Twitter's statement to ban the sitting U.S. president Jan. 8, 2020, cited "the risk of further incitement of violence" and its "Glorification of Violence" policy, adding it used two Trump tweets as the pretext for a ban.
Neither referenced violence two days after Jan. 6. Trump called for social media, Democrats, and the liberal media activists to stop attacking his voters for the storming of the Capitol.
"The 75,000,000 great American Patriots who voted for me, AMERICA FIRST, and MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN, will have a GIANT VOICE long into the future. They will not be disrespected or treated unfairly in any way, shape or form!!!"
The second tweet suggested Trump was going to avoid being a distraction at President-elect Joe Biden's inauguration.
"To all of those who have asked, I will not be going to the Inauguration on January 20th," Trump tweeted Jan. 8.
"As such, our determination is that the two Tweets above are likely to inspire others to replicate the violent acts that took place on January 6, 2021, and that there are multiple indicators that they are being received and understood as encouragement to do so," Twitter concluded.
Twitter also said the second tweet could be interpreted as Trump saying that since he would not be at the ceremony it would be a "safe target" for anyone considering potential violent acts against the inauguration.
Khamenei's website has published a video vowing revenge against Trump for the killing of QUDs Force Cmdr. Qassem Soleimani in January 2020. The video was also shared by Iran activists in America, and rebuked by former acting Director of National Intelligence Ric Grenell.
"Outrageous. There must be a swift and strong reaction from @jakejsullivan and @JoeBiden," Grenell tweeted. "And why is @Twitter allowing this guy to use their platform?"
Iranian Americans for Liberty, which tweeted out the Iran propaganda video to bring to light Iran's call for violence on Twitter, has been calling for the banning of all accounts linked to Iran's leader, including @khamenei_ir, @khamenei_fa, @Amirabdolahian.
"We are the only Iranian American group that pro-actively shared the video on social media," Iranian Americans for Liberty tweeted Saturday. "We are thankful to @RichardGrenell and Members of Congress for retweeting this so the world could see first-hand the lust for violence from Khamenei."
Eric Mack ✉
Eric Mack has been a writer and editor at Newsmax since 2016. He is a 1998 Syracuse University journalism graduate and a New York Press Association award-winning writer.
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