The Official President Assad Instagram Caption Contest

PRESIDENT Assad of Syria is a cool guy. His wife is a fragrant “rose in the desert“. On Assad’s Instagram account, we get this photo below of the man, the woman and the child who they are neither molesting nor murdering with toxic gases or bullets. Anyone who says they are is a dirty liar.

But how is the above picture captioned?

A: “Can we keep it?”

B: “This is one we use to test my signature scent on”

C. “Visit by the President and the First Lady to the people with special needs”

D. “Special needs child endures President and First Lady”

E. “Hey. Chin up. At least you’re not Jewish”

Emily Greenhouse wonders if Instagram is ok with the propaganda?

What does a social-media company do when a user known to be attacking civilians is blasting outfeel-good content? I posed this question to Instagram about Assad’s user stream. Alison Schumer, who works on the company’s policy and communications team, told me that she cannot comment on specific accounts, even if the account is a global public figure. But she explained that, generally speaking, if a user created content that promoted violence, Instagram would remove it and possibly disable the user. Schumer stressed the importance of the context of the image in making those calls—a caption might make an image threatening, for instance—but also said that “context” is generally limited to content on the site. What matters, then, is that the picture Assad puts up depicts his wife assisting a disabled child—the caption on that one translates as “In order for the people with special needs to give and create, they must be directed out of the space of pity, charity and compassion The First Lady Asma al Assad #syria#Asma#Assad#handicapped”—rather than whether he is promoting a violent regime. Perhaps if he began to post videos of gassed children, Instagram would take down the account.

Don’t take it down. Encourage it. Demand more. It’s fabulous, darling: