Iran Blocks Public Access to Threads App; Raisi’s Account Created

Just one day after its launch, Threads, the latest social media network, was blocked by the Islamic Republic, denying access to the Iranian population. This action occurred even though an account had been created for Iran President Ebrahim Raisi on the platform.

On Thursday afternoon, Raisi’s user account, under the address raisi.ir, was established on Threads. Within a few hours, by Friday noon, he had garnered 27,000 followers. He has yet to make any posts, apparently because the Presidential Office staff administers Raisi’s social media accounts.

As Raisi’s user account debuted on the social media platform, numerous Iranian social media users have voiced concerns regarding restricted access to the platform since Thursday evening. Users have indicated that similar to Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook, they require a VPN or proxy to connect to Threads.  

Journalist Ehsan Bodaghi said on Twitter: “During the election, Mr. Raisi spoke about the importance of people’s online businesses and his 2 million followers on Instagram. After one year, he blocked and filtered all social media platforms, and now, within the initial hours, he has become a member of the social network # Threads, which his own government has filtered. Inconsistency knows no bounds!”

Another journalist, Javad Daliri, posted this on Twitter: “Mr. Raisi and Mr. Ghalibaf raced each other to join the new social network # Threads. As a citizen, I have a question: Can one issue filtering orders and be among the first to break the filtering and join? By the way, was joining this unknown network really your priority?”

Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf is Speaker of the Parliament of Iran.

Despite the Iranian government’s frequent censorship of social media platforms, officials of the Islamic Republic use these platforms for communication. Notably, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran, maintains an active presence on Twitter.

Threads was introduced by Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram. The app was launched late Wednesday. Within two days, Threads has amassed more than 55 million users. The social network shares similarities with Twitter, allowing users to interact with posts through likes and reposts, and nearly doubles the character count limitation imposed by Twitter.

The similarities between Threads and Twitter have sparked a legal dispute between Elon Musk, the owner of Twitter, and Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg. Musk has accused Meta of employing former Twitter engineers and tweeted, “Competition is good, but cheating is not.”

Meta dismissed the copycat allegation, posting on Threads: “No one on the Threads engineering team is a former Twitter employee — that’s just not a thing.”  
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