The Islamic Republic’s Iranian flag has been scrubbed from Elon Musk’s social media platform X.
The move comes as deadly protests demanding regime change in Tehran raged into a 14th day Saturday.
Now, the old Iranian national flag featuring a lion and a sun — which was the official flag of the country up until the 1979 Islamic Revolution that brought the fundamentalist regime of the Ayatollah to power — shows up on the platform.
The old Iranian flag, which has re-emerged as a symbol of protest, now shows up on X instead of that of the Islamic Republic. AFP via Getty Images
The change came after a social media user reached out to X’s head of product, Nikita Bear, and boss Elon Musk on Thursday, asking them to change the emoji of the Iranian flag.
Bear responded the same day, saying “give me a few hours.”
On Friday, she wrote “In progress: Should be live sometime tomorrow on web.”
Islamic Republic government accounts removed the flag emoji from their profiles after the change. x/IRIMFA_EN
Iranians have taken to the streets to protest the Ayatollah’s regime. ZUMAPRESS.com
It led to a brief period where the Islamic Republic’s official government accounts had the lion and sun protest flag next to its name — until it removed the emoji from its X account altogether.
The old Shah-era lion and sun flag has recently re-emerged across Iran as a symbol of protest, as Iranians have taken to the streets to protest the country’s repressive regime and collapsing economy.