October 7, 2023 @ 4:08 PM
Iran has praised attacks by Hamas on Israel on social platform X (formerly Twitter), causing outrage about why these statements are being allowed on the platform. The post has received 2.4 million views.
On an account that has nearly a million followers, posting statements from Iran Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, came the message, “God willing, the cancer of the usurper Zionist regime will be eradicated at the hands of the Palestinian people and the Resistance forces throughout the region.” The government of Iran is an Islamic theocracy that has supported Hamas.
Former Republican Rep. Adam Kinzinger was among those expressing outrage at X for allowing official posts from Iran’s government on the platform that support Hamas’ attacks. The video is believed to show panicked young people who were at a music festival when they were attacked by Hamas.
Others have tweeted at Elon Musk asking how this doesn’t violate the platform’s terms of service. This comes as Musk has increasingly pushed the idea of X being a platform for free speech with few limits. At the same time, he’s also faced criticism from pro-Jewish, anti-hate organization the Anti-Defamation League, as well as concerns about brand safety from advertisers who don’t want their ads and accounts to be associated with hate speech.
The post was updated with a note from X saying that it does break X rules, but “X has determined that it may be in the public’s interest for the Post to remain accessible.”
Meanwhile, other commenters on the post joined Republican members of Congress in attacking President Joe Biden’s administration for unfreezing $6 billion in Iranian assets earlier this year in a prisoner swap. The Biden administration has called those attacks “false and misleading,” noting that the money is earmarked specifically for humanitarian purposes, the U.S. has oversight of the funds and there isn’t evidence that the funds have left the account they’re held in.
This marks one of the first major world events since X CEO Elon Musk removed headlines from displaying with news stories linked on the platform. It’s made the spread of misinformation easier, as has the shift since Musk took over doing away with traditional verified accounts and instead making verification available to anyone who pays for a subscription.
NBC’s Ben Goggin was among those who pointed to videos being posted to X claiming to be of events in Israel from Saturday, but that were actually old footage. People posting these videos are likely to benefit from X’s monetization program, which rewards popular content posted to the platform by subscribers.
Verified users on X are reposting old videos of bombings and building collapses suggesting that they are footage from Israel today.
The posts are getting up to a million views, while the posters are most likely benefiting from X’s monetization program
https://t.co/Rp67GWqNl8 pic.twitter.com/l0O9G7McaR
— Ben Goggin (@BenjaminGoggin) October 7, 2023
Prominent independent journalist Yashar Ali, who is of Iranian descent, called Khamenei’s post “disgusting” and “dangerous,” while noting that both Musk and the previous owners of the social platform allowed this account to remain.
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