In honor of the World Cup, Twitter has rolled out a “hashflag” feature that creates a little flag emoticon every time you tweet the three-letter abbreviation for a country in the tournament.
Shakira demonstrates here:
Only thing is, it looks a little odd when Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is inveighing against the hypocrisy of the Great Satan:
Twitter is blocked in Iran, but a number of prominent political figures including Khamenei, President Hassan Rouhani, and Foreign Minister Javad Zarif have accounts run by their offices. (Zarif’s is the only one that’s verified.)
Rouhani and Zarif have both been tweeting in support of the national team, though some Iranian citizens have been arrested for being a bit too enthusiastic about the team on social media.
Khamenei usually sticks to religion and geopolitics on his feed, though there have been some odd digressions, such as the time last year when he lamented that too few young Iranians enjoy hiking.
