Meta’s supervisory board on Monday overturned the company’s decision to remove a Facebook post that used the slogan “death to Khamenei” to criticize the Iranian leader, saying it did not violate a rule that excludes threats of violence, News.ro reported.

The council, which is funded by Meta but operates independently, said in the ruling that the phrase is often used to mean “Down with Khamenei,” referring to Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has led a violent crackdown on recent nationwide protests. months

He also called on the company to develop better ways to include such context in its content policy and to make clear when rhetorical threats against heads of state are permitted.

“In the context of the position and the wider social, political and linguistic situation in Iran, ‘marg bar Khamenei’ should be understood as ‘doloy.’ This is a rhetorical political slogan, not a real threat,” the council wrote.

Iran has been gripped by demonstrations since mid-September following the death in custody of a 22-year-old Iranian Kurdish woman who was arrested for wearing “inappropriate clothing” under the country’s strict dress code for women.

The protests, in which demonstrators from all walks of life called for the downfall of Iran’s ruling theocracy, have become one of the biggest challenges to the Shiite-led government of the Islamic Republic since the 1979 revolution.

The riots have created a familiar conundrum for Meta, which has repeatedly relaxed the treatment of violent political rhetoric on its platforms.

The company bans speech that incites “serious violence” but seeks to avoid over-restriction, limiting application to credible threats, leaving it unclear when and how the rule applies.

For example, after Russia invaded Ukraine last year, Meta implemented a temporary exception to allow calls for the death of Russian President Vladimir Putin to give users in the region an opportunity to express their anger at the war. However, he revoked the exception a few days later, after Reuters reported on its existence.

Meta also faced scrutiny over how its platforms were used to orchestrate the January 6 attack on the US Capitol.

Phrases such as “kill them all” appeared in thousands of US Facebook groups before the attack, including calls for violence against certain US political leaders.

In its ruling, the watchdog noted that the statements about Khamenei’s “death” differed from the threats issued around January 6 because the politicians were then “obviously at risk” in the US context, and “his death” was not a rhetorical statement in English.

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