Kim Kardashian may have just won the Webbys' first-ever Break the Internet award, but those digital top honors are not impressing the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corp. Mostafa Alizadeh, spokesperson for the Corp's Organized Cyberspace Crimes unit, accused Kardashian Sunday of being a secret agent working on Instagram's behalf to "target" young people.
"Ms. Kim Kardashian is a popular fashion model so Instagram's CEO tells her, 'make this native,'" Alizadeh said during an Iranian news program, according toIranWire. "There is no doubt that financial support is involved as well. We are taking this very seriously." Representatives for Kim did not immediately respond to Complex's request for comment.
Alizadeh added that Instagram's CEO, Kevin Systrom, was working to make fashion modeling native to the sovereign state. "They are targeting young people and women," he said. "Foreigners are behind it because it is targeting families. These schemes originate from around the Persian Gulf and England. When you draw the operational graph, you will see that it is a foreign operation."
Though it's easy to joke about someone actually accusing Kim Kardashian of being a secret agent, Iran is not taking any of these allegations lightly. As previously reported, an operation known as Spider II has resulted in the arrests of multiple models due solely to their Instagram accounts.
"In Spider II, we had 170 individuals who were active in modeling, fashion houses and photography workshops," Javad Babaee, supervisor of the Prosecutor's Office for Media Crimes, said Sunday. "Of this number, 29 will be prosecuted. Our aim is to teach them a lesson and make them wake up. In many cases, a warning was sufficient and we did not take legal action. Of the 29 individuals, eight have been arrested and their cases are being processed." Instagram did not immediately respond to Complex's request for comment.
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