Facebook, Twitter and Google have come under fire yet again as they must choose whether to censor the Taliban as it retakes Afghanistan
In the debate on censorship and civic duty, big tech is encountering a high-stakes question: whether it should censor the Taliban.
Facebook, Twitter and Google currently have bans in place to prevent the Taliban from creating accounts on their platforms.
But as the Taliban takes over Afghanistan, big tech must choose whether to block the country’s official state social media channels.
We went to Afghanistan almost 20 years ago with clear goals: get those who attacked us on September 11, 2001—and make sure al Qaeda could not use Afghanistan as a base from which to attack us again.
We did that—a decade ago.
Our mission was never supposed to be nation building.
Facebook says that it’s likely to take cues from the US government and other global leaders
It still remains unclear whether the US will recognise the Taliban as Afghanistan’s official government.
US President Biden is unlikely to take this route unless the Taliban publicly severs ties from terrorist groups like al-Qaeda.
The Taliban has already promised to protect the rights of minorities and women, but this remains to be seen.
How are Facebook, Google and Twitter handling the situation?
Facebook has said that it will continue to ban content from the Taliban so far as the US continues to classify the group as a dangerous terror organisation. The platform also removes any posts which explicitly praise the group.
Google, which owns Youtube, has banned the Taliban from operating accounts. User content which promotes the Taliban can be flagged for inciting violence or spreading hate speech.
Meanwhile, Twitter doesn’t yet have a specific policy to outline how it will respond to the Taliban other than those generally prohibiting posts that glorify violence.
If big tech gives the Taliban the green pass, concerns are that the group will use the platforms to spread propaganda.
The Taliban has already started trying to effectively re-brand itself, pledging to build an ‘inclusive government’ earlier this week.
It said this new government would protect the rights of women and minorities “within the bounds of sharia law”.
During the Taliban’s occupation of Afghanistan from 1996 to 2001, its interpretation of Sharia laws included stoning or executing women who refused to comply with the regime.
If you censor & advocate violence over objectionable speech you have no moral high ground.
This specific behavior is not limited to the Taliban.
Today in the west we have many cases of people being silenced, arrested or jailed over speech deemed objectionable by the state. https://t.co/aUx3rsVmf5
Would banning the Taliban from social media lead to more harm?
Another major concern is that more aggressive censorship against the Taliban could limit global discourse about affairs in Afghanistan.
Faiza Patel from the Brennan Center for Justice’s Liberty & National Security program raised concerns about entirely censoring the group.
“How does that constrain political discourse on Facebook if you literally cannot talk about the Taliban except to criticise them?”
“I know most of us are probably going to be criticizing the Taliban, but there are obvious objective conversations that you can have about what it means” for Afghanistan.
It remains yet to be seen whether the group will honour its promise of protecting the rights of all Afghans, and what role big tech will have to play moving forward.
