Many Iranian users are puzzled – how does Iran’s supreme leader manage to post videos exceeding the maximum 15 seconds on Instagram?
His videos – often longer than a minute – are not the usual Instagram fare of artfully shot scenes of 21st century life, they instead comprise excerpts from the 75-year-old Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s speeches on topics such as deteriorating relations with Saudi Arabia and the Islamic republic’s nuclear programme.
But he doesn’t have special powers and Instagram is certainly not making an exception for the man with the highest authority in Iran. It’s all down to a computer glitch.
In a brief statement, Instagram told the Guardian: “We recently became aware of a bug that allowed some users to post videos to Instagram that are longer than 15 seconds. We worked quickly and fixed the bug.”
The issue was first highlighted by Pouria Zeraati of the exiled Iranian television channel Manoto. He wondered if Khamenei’s office, who runs his account, have tampered with the system. “Dear leader, can you give us the magic code?” one user joked on Twitter.
How does #Khamenei post long videos to #Instagram ? #ManotoNews #Manoto
— pouria zeraati (@pouriazeraati) April 26, 2015
A quick Google search also shows a number of programmes that offer help to bypass the Instagram limit.
Despite Instagram’s statement, Khamenei’s long videos like this one are still available on his account:
