Facebook is doubling down on censorship of anything less than villification of slain Iranian Major General Qassem Soleimani, deleting a clip showing his history of fighting terrorism \u2013 and demonetizing the account posting it.<\/p>\n
The social media behemoth didn\u2019t just remove independent journalist Dan Cohen\u2019s \u2018In the Now\u2019 segment, \u201cHow \u2018good guy\u2019 Soleimani became US media\u2019s \u2018bad guy,\u201d from the show\u2019s page on Tuesday \u2013 it demonetized In the Now entirely, citing the typical unspecified violations of \u201ccommunity standards.\u201d The move comes amid an alarming escalation in the platform\u2019s crackdown on political speech that runs contrary to US foreign policy, a wave of censorship that has not been limited to Facebook.<\/p>\n
Despite being 100% factually accurate, Facebook censored my video on how Soleimani led Iran’s fight against ISIS and demonetized @IntheNow_tweet’s account. Apparently the truth violated”Community Standards”. For now, you can watch the segment here: https:\/\/t.co\/Z1qz11Ro9T pic.twitter.com\/0qOCYKHq6E<\/p>\n
\u2014 Dan Cohen (@dancohen3000) January 15, 2020<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Cohen\u2019s video calmly and accurately explains how Soleimani \u201csaved the region from falling to ISIS,\u201d fighting the terrorist group alongside the US and its Kurdish allies before he was recast posthumously by a complicit western media as \u201cactually a huge terrorist and a ticking time bomb who was born to kill Americans.\u201d The video exposes the ideological inconsistency of the outlets currently depicting the Quds Force commander as the devil incarnate, showcasing clips from those same outlets in recent years praising Soleimani\u2019s battlefield performance.<\/p>\n
Rania Khalek, who runs In the Now, tweeted in shock that a video merely stating facts about Soleimani had gotten her page demonetized, asking \u201cwhere is the outrage\u201d now that Facebook was so explicitly deleting material for ideological reasons.<\/p>\n
Facebook is deleting political content at the behest of the US government. At the behest of a Trump-run government. They are deleting content that challenges the US drive for war. Where is the outrage????<\/p>\n
\u2014 Rania Khalek (@RaniaKhalek) January 15, 2020<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Facebook and its subsidiary Instagram have come under fire from independent journalists and media organizations like the International Federation of Journalists for embarking on a wholesale campaign to deplatform all support for Soleimani in the weeks following the US airstrike that killed him. The company has claimed the extensive US sanctions placed on Iran, including the designation of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as a terrorist organization, require it to censor such posts, though even legal experts quoted by CNN took a dim view of that rationale.<\/p>\n
Facebook and Instagram not only remove accounts run by or for sanctioned individuals or groups, but also posts that (they claim) praise or seek to assist the people in question \u2013 making sanctions a convenient excuse for mass-deplatforming any user who holds a political view the US government has deemed heresy.<\/p>\n
Iranians saw insult added to injury when over a dozen Iranian journalists, several state-run media organizations, and countless ordinary individuals and activists\u2019 Instagram accounts were yanked entirely in the days following Soleimani\u2019s assassination. Many more saw pro-Soleimani posts removed, even when they carefully avoided saying his name \u2013 one Lebanese researcher praised \u201cQ*ssem S*leim*ni\u201d for protecting Christians from ISIS and al-Qaeda, only to have his video removed anyway.<\/p>\n
The rank ideological discrimination not only left them unable to publicly mourn for a leader beloved by the lion\u2019s share of the people, but allowed pro-regime-change trolls to dominate the narrative. Facebook has recently taken flack from the US political establishment for refusing to \u201cfact-check\u201d political ads, but non-advertising content is more tightly controlled than ever.<\/p>\n
Facebook and Instagram are far from alone in clamping down on the speech of Iranian users, however \u2013 YouTube briefly deleted state-backed PressTV\u2019s channel earlier this week, only to reactivate it after an outpouring of popular support<\/p>\n
BREAKING: Our Press TV UK account has been permanently disabled by #YouTube without explanation, amid US-led anti-Iran sanctions and hostility.@Presstvuk #PressTVUK #Censorship pic.twitter.com\/WoH9nAYChK<\/p>\n
\u2014 Press TV UK (@Presstvuk) January 13, 2020<\/p>\n
Twitter removed state-backed media outlet Al-Alam News\u2019 account, as well as that of the popular Iran-backed Spanish-language media outlet HispanTV, only reinstating the latter after a massive public backlash. Dozens of individual Iranians who supported their government were also deplatformed on Twitter, while anti-government users \u2013 many linked to notorious exile terror group Mujahedin e-Khalq (MEK) \u2013 were allowed to continue slinging hate against Soleimani and his supporters. Twitter even dished out a ban to Syrian President Bashar Assad, but restored the account after a few days.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
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