Sec. 2. Findings
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Congress finds the following: Despite having one of his Twitter accounts suspended, the Supreme Leader of Iran, Ayatollah Ali Khamanei, a Specially Designated Global Terrorist by the Department of the Treasury, and the leader of the world’s leading State Sponsor of Terrorism, has multiple social media accounts on Twitter and Instagram. The Supreme Leader has used his accounts to threaten violence against Americans, support the destruction of the State of Israel, promote conspiracy theories and disinformation regarding COVID–19 vaccines, and incite anti-Semitism on a number of occasions.
The Foreign Minister of Iran, Javad Zarif, a senior official of a State Sponsor of Terrorism, has a number of social media accounts on Twitter, Instagram, and other platforms. On January 2, 2021, Zarif tweeted an anti-Semitic conspiracy theory that Israel was plotting attacks on Americans in Iraq. The President of the Syria, Bashar al-Assad, responsible for the brutal killing of half a million of his own people, and the President of a State Sponsor of Terrorism, has multiple social media accounts on Twitter and Instagram.
He has used his accounts on social media to whitewash and promote his regime, and promote hatred against the United States and Israel. The President of Cuba, Miguel Diaz-Canel, who heads a regime responsible for multiple gross violations of human rights, and which is a State Sponsor of Terrorism, has an account on Twitter representing the official Cuban Presidency. He has used his account on social media to promote global communism, anti-Americanism, and whitewash the Cuban regime’s human rights abuses.
Terrorist organizations and entities sanctioned for terrorism under Executive Order 13224, including the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), Hezbollah, Kata’ib Hezbollah, Hamas, and Asa’ib ahl al-Haq, have a number of social media accounts on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube. Social media platforms make a profit on accounts provided and maintained to individuals and entities sanctioned for terrorism through the sale of advertisements which are viewed by such sanctioned individuals through their accounts.
Economic sanctions prohibiting the provision of services to individuals and entities sanctioned for terrorism should apply to social media platforms, while still supporting the free flow of information and maintaining the important principle that information should remain free of sanctions.
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