Elon Musks social media platform X has quietly removed the Islamic Republics flag of Iran from its emoji set and replaced it with the pre-revolutionary lion-and-sun banner now widely used by anti-regime protesters.
According to The New York Post, the switch coincides with mass demonstrations in Iran, where deadly protests calling for regime change in Tehran have stretched into a 14th consecutive day. The updated emoji now displays the historic national flag bearing a lion and sun, which served as Irans official emblem until the 1979 Islamic Revolution installed the Ayatollahs fundamentalist regime.
The change followed a direct appeal on X to the companys head of product, Nikita Bear, and to Elon Musk, urging them to replace the Islamic Republics flag emoji with the older national symbol. Bear replied the same day, telling the user to give me a few hours, signaling that the request was being taken seriously at the highest levels of the platform.
By Friday, Bear confirmed the update was underway, writing, In progress: Should be live sometime tomorrow on web. Once live, the shift briefly produced an awkward spectacle in which the Islamic Republics own official government accounts appeared with the lion-and-sun protest flag beside their names, before regime handlers removed the emoji entirely from their X profiles.
The Shah-era flag has re-emerged across Iran as a potent emblem of resistance, waved by citizens who reject the theocratic dictatorship and its failing, sanctions-strangled economy. In elevating that symbol while sidelining the Islamic Republics banner, X has effectively aligned its interface with the aspirations of Iranian protesters, underscoring how private platforms and free expression can challenge authoritarian regimes in ways that bureaucratic Western governments too often hesitate to do.
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