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by Ari Paul

Coda (1/10/20) appears to have been the first to break the story of Instagrams Soleimani censorship, as part of the sites focus on authoritarian tech.

Instagram, and its parent company Facebook, took down posts regarded as too sympathetic to Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani, who was assassinated January 3 in a controversial US airstrike. The news website Coda (1/10/20) was credited with breaking the news, and Newsweek (1/10/20) also reported that

Iranian journalists have reported the censorship of their Instagram accounts. Posts about Soleimani have disappeared from Instagram, which is currently the only operational international social media site within Iran.

According to the Facebook corporation, as quoted by CNN (1/10/20), removal of such posts is required by US sanctions; the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, of which Soleimani was a commander, was designated as a terrorist organization by the US government in April:

As part of its compliance with US law, the Facebook spokesperson said the company removes accounts run by or on behalf of sanctioned people and organizations.

One might rightly ask: What constitutes a post supportive of the late military commander? According to the CNN report, merely posting a photo of the general could get the Facebook authorities to take a post down.

The International Federation of Journalists condemned the censorship:

The measures have gone even further, and some accounts of Iranian newspapers and news agencies have now been removed from the social media platform. This poses an immediate threat to freedom of information in Iran, as Instagram is the only international social media platform currently still operating in the country.

The Washington Times (1/11/20) reported:

Ali Rabiei, a spokesperson for the Iranian government, complained from his Twitter account on Monday this week about the disappearance of social media discussions about Soleimani, accusing Instagram of acting undemocratic and unashamed.

Much of the coverage has centered on the fact that Instagram is one of the few social media networks not widely restricted in Iranthus, the blackout serves as a way of censoring information going into Iran. In fact, the US government news agency Voice of America (1/7/20) reported that the Iranian government was clamping down on social media posts too critical of Soleimani, and NBC News (8/21/19) reported on how Iranians used networks like Instagram to skirt government regulation. (The irony here is thick.)

Facebook says that in order to comply with US sanctions laws, it removes posts that commend the actions of sanctioned parties (CNN, 1/13/20).

But this news has also gotten journalists and press advocates worried about what this means for free speech and the First Amendment in the United States. On the one hand, as a private company, Facebook is free to make its own rules about acceptable content. Yet if the network is removing content because it believes it is required to do so by law, that is government censorshipand forbidden by the Constitutions guarantee of freedom of the press.

Shayana Kadidal, a senior managing attorney at the Center for Constitutional Rights, told FAIR that while it was possible for the US government to restrict media companies from coordinating with sanctioned entities and providing material support to the IRGC, the US government cannot restrict Americans from engaging in what he called independent advocacy.

Independent advocacy, as the law stands, cant be banned, he said. For [Instagram] to remove every single post would mean it was pulling posts that are protected.

The Washington Post (1/13/20) reported that free speech advocates were worried, with the director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation calling it legally wrong. Others concurred:

Eliza Campbell, associate director at the Cyber Program at the Middle East Institute in Washington, DC, [said] that the existing laws had failed to keep up with online speech, calling it a field of law that hasnt been written quite yet.

The terrorist designation system is an important tool, but its also a blunt instrument, she said. I think were walking down a dangerous path when we afford these platformswhich are private entities, have no oversight, and are not elected bodiesto essentially dictate policy, which is whats happening right now.

Emerson T. Brooking, a resident fellow at the Atlantic Councils Digital Forensic Research Lab, [said] that Facebook and Instagram are taking a very aggressive position and it may not be sustainable. He said it could result in Facebook removing any speech of any Iranian mourning Soleimanis death and could represent a harsh new precedent.

In the wake of the Soleimani assassination, the wrong joke can be career-ending (New York Times, 1/11/20).

Regardless of whether the government directed Facebook to take this action, the fact that a media company felt the need to do so is proof of a chilling effect on speech. Who, specifically, is to decide what is so unabashedly pro-Soleimani material that it violates US sanctions? Is an article that merely acknowledges that many Iranians mourned Soleimani and denounced his killing a violation? Is an anti-war editorial that doesnt sufficiently assert Soleimani was no angel constitute such a crime? Could satirical material that facetiously supported the Tehran regime get censored? (The last item isnt so hypothetical: A Babson College professor was fired for jokingly encouraging Iran to follow Trumps lead by targeting US cultural sites.)

All of these questions, and all this ambiguity, should be enough evidence that this kind of censorship would be capricious and unfairly applied, and thus inappropriate in the face of free speech protections.

Free press advocates in the United States should think seriously in the coming days about how to respond. If sanctions can be invoked by a social media network to take down certain content, what is next? In order not to find out, well need a concerted pushback to Facebooks censorship from journalists and civil libertarians.

You can send a message to Facebook via Twitter: @Facebook (or @Instagram). Remember that respectful communication is the most effective. Feel free to leave a copy of your message in the comments thread of this post.

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Facebook's Soleimani Ban Flies in Face of First Amendment - FAIR