A social media presence is an important aspect of any political campaign in the United States. So when Florida’s Gov. Jeb Bush joined Instagram (@jebbush) at the beginning of this year, it didn’t exactly come as a surprise. However, little did the rumored 2016 GOP presidential candidate know that comments from his over 5,800 Instagram followers would mostly come from minions of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

During the past several weeks, Ayatollah Khamenei’s followers in the virtual and literal sense — through #Letter4u — actively spammed Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Google+ and even Tumblr with links and short messages that pose questions such as: “Searching for the truth? Then #Letter4u is what you might want to read first,” or “Do you know the leader of iran have written a letter for you??” — all with the aim to garner the attention of people in the West.

After last month’s attack on Charlie Hebdo in Paris and anti-Islam rallies in Europe, Ayatollah Khameini took matters into his own hands by releasing a letter to the youth of Europe and North America, asking that they “study and research the incentives behind this widespread tarnishing of the image of Islam” and “try to gain a direct and firsthand knowledge of this religion.” The letter fell upon deaf ears in the West, but that didn’t stop Ayatollah Khamenei’s followers from spreading his message to seek the true meaning of Islam.

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