Taliban Officially Endorses Twitter
Amidst the social media rivalry between tech billionaires Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg, Taliban ideologue Anas Haqqani, who has family ties to the leadership of the terrorist organization, stated that Twitter has "two significant advantages over other social media platforms."
The first advantage, according to the high-ranking Taliban official, is "freedom of speech." He made this remark in a post on July 10.
The second advantage he highlighted is the "public nature" and "authority" of the platform, adding that he is not a fan of its main competitor, which recently launched the Threads program.
"Twitter does not have the intolerance policy like Meta," Haqqani wrote. "Other platforms cannot replace this."
It seems the Taliban is appreciating this. Two Taliban officials even purchased verification blue checkmarks after Musk started selling them in January. They are now verified users, and their posts are automatically promoted to the news feeds of thousands of users.
Recall that BBC reported on paid Twitter Blue accounts spreading fakes about the war in Ukraine, with sources originating from Russian government propaganda and Kremlin-controlled media outlets. BBC conducted and published an investigation on this matter. Previously, the blue checkmark on Twitter was used to denote a verified individual, but now, with Elon Musk leading the company, it simply signifies someone who pays for their account.
Meta (Facebook, Instagram, Threads) and ByteDance (TikTok) consider the Taliban a terrorist organization and prohibit them from posting content. This ban remains in effect today.
While the global community weakly condemns the presence of terrorists on Elon Musk's Twitter platform, no action is being taken. Therefore, alongside independent journalists, government officials, activists, and ordinary people, one can read and hear the Taliban's views on the current state of social media on Twitter.
Aram Shahbanyan, OSINT manager at the New Lines Institute, suggests that in this case, Musk "represents a lawless society driven by profit," where money takes precedence over common sense.