{"id":92184,"date":"2021-01-21T07:41:25","date_gmt":"2021-01-21T12:41:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/?p=92184"},"modified":"2021-01-21T07:46:11","modified_gmt":"2021-01-21T12:46:11","slug":"auto-draft-451","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/2021\/01\/21\/auto-draft-451\/","title":{"rendered":"Biden to Inherit Trump\u2019s Aggressive Iran Social Media Campaign"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\"\"VOA \u2014 WASHINGTON – The incoming Biden administration is inheriting from President Donald Trump an Iran-focused social media campaign that dramatically boosted U.S. engagement with Iranians by sharply criticizing their Islamist rulers, a strategy that President-elect Joe Biden appears set to change. \u00a0<\/p>\n

Trump and his State Department used a variety of social media channels, messaging techniques and languages to exert what they called \u201cmaximum pressure\u201d on Iran\u2019s ruling clerics to stop perceived malign behaviors. \u00a0<\/p>\n

One dividend of that strategy was a huge increase in audience for the State Department\u2019s Farsi-language Instagram account<\/a>, according to Gabriel Noronha, who ran its Farsi social media channels from late 2019 to late 2020. In a recent interview with VOA Persian, Noronha said the department\u2019s USAdarFarsi (USA in Farsi) Instagram account grew its followers from 147,000 in January 2019 to 759,000 in January 2021, a more than five-fold increase in a two-year period. \u00a0<\/p>\n

The USAdarFarsi Facebook<\/a>\u00a0and Twitter<\/a>\u00a0 channels also have more than 700,000 followers. \u00a0<\/p>\n

Noronha said most engagement for the USAdarFarsi Instagram account comes from inside Iran where Instagram is the only major Western-run social media platform that Iranians can access freely. Facebook and Twitter are blocked by the Iranian government, leaving them accessible only to tech-savvy Iranians using virtual private networks. \u00a0<\/p>\n

Noronha said VPNs, which hide a user\u2019s true location, make it hard for the State Department to determine how much traffic for its Persian Facebook and Twitter accounts comes from inside Iran versus from the Iranian diaspora. \u201cFor the USAdarFarsi Twitter account, I\u2019d say about half of our traffic comes from Iran and the other half from the U.S. and Europe,\u201d Noronha said. \u201cThe Facebook account is somewhere between Twitter and Instagram (in terms of the amount of traffic that comes from Iran),\u201d he added. \u00a0<\/p>\n

The types of posts that got the most engagement on the USAdarFarsi accounts had three main themes, according to Noronha. \u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIranian social media users were most appreciative when we posted messages that supported their denunciations of the Iranian regime for imprisoning and executing rights activists, that endorsed their calls for anti-government protests and that celebrated Iranian cultural traditions pre-dating the nation’s 1979 Islamic Revolution,\u201d he said. Iran\u2019s post-revolution clerical rulers have discouraged the observance of popular festivals and other cultural practices that they see as inconsistent with their fundamentalist view of Islam. \u00a0<\/p>\n

Noronha said there was especially high traffic for Farsi-language tweets on Trump\u2019s personal Twitter account, @realDonaldTrump, which Twitter permanently suspended earlier this month citing perceived incitement to violence, a move denounced by Trump as an attempt to silence his free speech. \u00a0<\/p>\n

Trump tweeted in Farsi seven times during his presidential term, according to the Trump Twitter Archive<\/a>, an online resource cited by U.S. news outlets. His first Farsi tweet, posted on February 11, 2019, got 65,000 likes and accused Iran\u2019s rulers of 40 years of corruption, repression, terror and failure as they marked the 40th anniversary of their revolution. \u00a0<\/p>\n

Trump\u2019s second Farsi tweet posted on January 11, 2020 contained a message in support of Iranian street protests against the Iranian military\u2019s downing of a Ukrainian passenger plane shortly after it took off from Tehran three days earlier. It was the most popular of his seven Farsi tweets, drawing 340,000 likes. Trump\u2019s message said: \u201cTo the brave and suffering people of Iran: I have stood with you since the beginning of my presidency and my government will continue to stand with you. We are following your protests closely. Your courage is inspiring.\u201d \u00a0<\/p>\n

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\"Screen<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>
Screen grab of President Donald Trump’s second and most liked Farsi-language tweet posted on Jan. 11, 2020.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Trump\u2019s January 11, 2020 Farsi tweet angered Iran\u2019s then-Foreign Ministry spokesman Abbas Mousavi, who responded the next day by tweeting : \u201cHands and tongues smeared with threatening, sanctioning and terrorizing the #Iranian nation, are not entitled to dishonor the ancient #Persian_language.\u201d \u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n