‘Silicon Valley giant Facebook announced Friday that it would be deleting all positive posts about recently assassinated Iranian general Qassem Soleimani on its platform and its subsidiary Instagram. The reason for this, it explained to CNN, was that the new U.S. sanctions made it illegal to promote any message supporting a person or group that the government describes as a terrorist organization. “We operate under U.S. sanctions laws, including those related to the U.S. government’s designation of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and its leadership,” a Facebook spokesperson said. Instagram had already closed Soleimani’s account in April last year, following Trump’s designation of the IRGC as a terrorist group. Following the news Friday, Twitter suspended Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei’s account for “unusual activity.” It was later reopened.
Last week Trump threatened to wreak havoc and destruction on Iran, promising to destroy dozens of major Iranian cultural sites, recognized immediately by the international community as a major war crime and a crime against humanity. The president has backed away from open war, but also announced new “punishing” sanctions on the Islamic Republic
In the rush to comply with these new rules, big American companies have gone overboard. Paypal, for example, began blocking donations to alternative media website The Grayzone that mentioned “Iran” in the title or text. The Grayzone has been a rare source of pushback to the Trump administration’s plans for war in the region.’
Read more: Big Tech Firms Are Joining Trump’s All Out War Against Iran
