Users of Instagram know very well that from the very first hours after the US terrorist attack and assassination of Soleimani and abu Mahdai al-Muhandes in Baghdad airport this app censored all contents that praised soleimani in one way or another.[1] Soleimani was very popular not only amongst Iranians but also amongst other nations of the region but posts which grieved his martyrdom were removed from social media.
Without providing evidence the US accused Soleimani of carrying out terrorist attacks against American soldiers but never answered the question as to what they were doing in the region in the first place. Abu Mahdi al-Muhandes, an Iraqi military commander, strived greatly to rid Iraq of ISIS. So, the question remains as to why the US assassinate an Iraqi military commander who was defending his country against the most notorious terrorist group in recent history? He was not known as a terrorist neither among Iraqi people nor by the Iraqi government.
Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and the like all claim to advocate freedom of speech. This one case proved how far removed they are from freedom of speech and that freedom of speech is just a deception. Film maker and journalist Dan Cohen asserted[2] that as long as Soleimani fought ISIS and the Americans had to cooperate with him in order to save face, was the good guy in American media but the moment Trump ordered his assassination he turned to a bad guy in the same media, a video which was removed by Facebook.[3]
Russia Today says this censorship was not limited to Facebook.[4] Lebanese American writer, Rania Khelek, condemned deleting of political content by Facebook at the behest of the US government.[5] Hadi Nasrallah, a Lebanese researcher was also among those who faced censorship because he had praised Soleimani for standing up for Christians against ISIS and Al Qaeda.[6] In another instance of violation of freedom of speech YouTube disabled Press TV’s account[7] though it had to backpedal after facing protests.[8]
While these social media censored such contents,[9] members of MEK who are responsible for the killing of thousands of Iranian officials and ordinary people and others who shared interests with them were free to spread lies against Iran and tarnish General Soleimani’s image.
Notes:
[1] https://www.codastory.com/authoritarian-tech/instagram-iran-soleimani/
[2] https://twitter.com/inthenow/status/1215719997965623296
[3] https://twitter.com/dancohen3000/status/1217245924839362565
[4] https://www.rt.com/news/478382-cohen-soleimani-video-censored-facebook/
[5] https://twitter.com/RaniaKhalek/status/1217241890317373445
[6] https://twitter.com/HadiNasrallah/status/1216109362856517634
[7] https://twitter.com/Presstvuk/status/1216846009160085504
[8] https://twitter.com/Presstvuk/status/1217386538700550144
[9] https://thegrayzone.com/2020/01/12/us-pressure-social-media-censoring-suspending-venezuela-iran-syria/
Users of Instagram know very well that from the very first hours after the US terrorist attack and assassination of Soleimani and abu Mahdai al-Muhandes in Baghdad airport this app censored all contents that praised soleimani in one way or another. Soleimani was very popular not only amongst Iranians but also amongst other nations of the region but posts which grieved his martyrdom were removed from social media.