Afghanistan: Facebook bans all content supporting the Taliban

On Sunday, August 15, 2021, the Taliban entered Kabul, the capital of Afghanistan. Rebels without encountering resistance occupied the presidential palace President Ashraf Ghani fled the country by helicopter.

Taliban co-founder Abdul Ghani Baradar immediately announced victory of the movement on social networks. “Now is the time to evaluate and prove, we must show that we can serve our nation and ensure the security and comfort of life.”Abdul Ghani Baradar says. Rebels use social networks extensively to communicate with their supporters.

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Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp ban Taliban-related content

While thousands of Afghans tried to flee the country, Facebook announced that it had completely banned these applications. All content supporting the Taliban. The social network has set up a special team of Afghan experts to monitor and remove rebel-linked content. These experts are speaking “They are familiar with the Dari and Pashto local context, which helps us identify issues that arise on the platform.”.

“The Taliban is designated as a terrorist organization under US law, and we have banned them from serving under our dangerous organization policies. This means we will remove accounts run by or on behalf of the Taliban and ban praise and endorsements.”a Facebook spokesperson explains to the BBC:

The company explains that it acts based on this “The authority of the international community”. This ban does not only concern Facebook. All networks and tools of the California groupAll applications, including Instagram and WhatsApp, are covered by the measure.

We can expect other popular platforms such as Twitter or YouTube to take similar measures. So far, Twitter has reiterated that its regulations prohibit violent organizations and hateful behavior. However, many Taliban leaders still communicate via Twitter accounts.

Source : BBC