Considering its actions over the past several years, Facebook has been the arbiter of a bunch of other positions, too. I'm stunned that Facebook has sided with leaving posts up and unaltered in this case.
"Death to America" is a traditional greeting in Iran. But a couple weeks a year, Iranians enjoy wishing death to other people, such as Israel, or their own dictatorship. I think it's great that Facebook is culturally sensitive enough to accommodate the diversity of Iranian murder demands.
I've read that (can't find the citation) "Death to X!" is basically like a "God damnit!" curse, e.g. they'd say "Death to this traffic jam!" if stuck in traffic, but western news reports fail to bring the context. Again, maybe not true.
I wonder if they should just change the phrase to something like "I wish kittens for Khamenei!", but letting everyone know off-channel that this sentence means wishing him ill. How you gonna deal with that, Zuck?
I do remember that Rick Steves, the fellow with the PBS travel show, said that's what it meant and how it's used when he went to Iran. It still comes across a bit harsh and awkward for me.
The Farsi expression is apparently Marg bar. The Hindustani expression Murdabad which seems to be derived from Farsi definitely is used as a generic curse in India.
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[ 12.1 ms ] story [ 218 ms ] threadI wonder if they should just change the phrase to something like "I wish kittens for Khamenei!", but letting everyone know off-channel that this sentence means wishing him ill. How you gonna deal with that, Zuck?