Jul 26, 2016

Iranian media outlets have asked authorities to reconsider their nearly seven-year ban on Twitter so that Iranian users can answer in greater force to the millions of Saudi Arabian Twitter users who have begun anti-Iranian hashtags in recent months.

"The issue of Iran's weakness and the small number of Iranians on Twitter and the activity of anti-Iranian forces, especially Saudis on Twitter, in recent days has made the news and has made the topic of removing the block on this media important once again," wrote Pooria Asteraky in Hamshahri newspaper July 25.

Asteraky wrote that since Saudi Arabia's war in Yemen began in 2015, accounts belonging to Saudis would every so often begin an organized campaign of anti-Iranian hashtags, particularly on Fridays. Soon the activities from Saudi users became so common that small protests in Iran or even a fire in a petrochemical plant were being celebrated by Saudis and given their own Arabic hashtag. The article continued that some of the hashtags to trend worldwide, such as blaming Iranian pilgrims for the 2015 hajj stampede that killed 474 Iranians, could easily have been organized by Saudi institutions and are not indicative of individual users.

While Iranian users have responded to these hashtags, their numbers were too small and ultimately unsuccessful, according to Asteraky, who believes in Iran there are approximately 1-1.5 million active users, meaning that they use it at least once a month. Saudi Arabia has nearly 9 million active users, according to a mid-2015 estimate.

A July 14 article on the Tabnak news site, which is linked to secretary of the Expediency Council and former commander in the Iran-Iraq War Mohsen Rezaei, also questioned the block on Twitter: "Saudi's media war against Iran on Twitter has peaked such that Iran, where this site is blocked, has a relatively weak presence, and has not given a firm response to this psychological operation."