“They’re suppressing my stuff big time and it is almost expressly to do with Iran. These platforms are absolutely trying to dissuade people from doing activism on Iran,” said comedian and activist Chelsea Hart. Source: Wikimedia Commons.
Activists say Instagram is blocking content and suspending their accounts for sharing news about the Iran protests.
One of the activists, Saman Arbabi, said his account was suspended “for doing absolutely nothing wrong other than posting videos” of the protests being held around the world after the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini, who was killed by Iran’s morality police for improperly wearing her hijab.
Actor and human rights activist, Nazanin Boniadi, called for an explanation from Meta which also owns Facebook and WhatsApp.
Hey, @Meta, why are the @instagram accounts of so many of my Iranian activist friends being suspended for NO reason? Fix your algorithms. This is outrageous. #MahsaAmini https://t.co/VeAUE1gO9r
— Nazanin Boniadi (@NazaninBoniadi) October 23, 2022
Comedian and activist Chelsea Hart said in a video that Instagram demonetised their videos for posting about Iran and their creator fund has been withheld from before the posts were demonetised.
“Every single video that has gotten me in trouble has been specifically to do with Iran,” Hart said.
“They’re suppressing my stuff big time and it is almost expressly to do with Iran. These platforms are absolutely trying to dissuade people from doing activism on Iran.”
It is not the first time there have been concerns about Meta relating to Iran. particularly Instagram.
Back in June, Meta was called to review its Persian-language content review procedures by human rights groups.
Then in July, Iranian women’s rights activist Masih Alinejad wrote in a Washington Post op-ed the issues she faced on Instagram including losing access to the “live” feature.
She said this happened after posting a video of a confrontation between a hijab-wearing woman and another refusing to cover her head.
In comments to the Washington Post, an Instagram representative said “it is against our policies to take action on accounts at the request of the Iranian government”.
The representative said the restriction was placed on her account incorrectly due to a technical issue, that the social media platform issues restrictions automatically “when our systems detect spammy behaviour”.
Earlier in May, it was also reported that Iranian moderators working for a Meta subcontractor in Germany could be connected to the Iranian government and taking instructions from it.
