The Taliban is on Twitter and Has Questions About Facebook Limiting Freedom of Speech
The Taliban is suddenly a large part of the news cycle again now that the United States has removed troops from Afghanistan. The visuals and news from the chaos during and after the withdrawal have been like scenes from a movie, but it has also produced some cable news moments that might fit more on The Onion or the @dril Twitter feed. Two of which have been about American social media companies.
This morning on Fox & Friends, author Douglas Murray complained that the Taliban is on Twitter while conservative voices are banned from the platform.
Fox & Friends covers the real tragedy of Afghanistan: The Taliban is allowed on Twitter, but "conservative after conservative [is] banned from the platform." (h/t @mount_bees) pic.twitter.com/DDrN8QTRJk
— Bobby Lewis (@revrrlewis) August 18, 2021
(Douglas Murray has 350,000 followers on Twitter and uses the platform regularly.)
And yesterday a Taliban spokesman took a shot at Facebook for limiting freedom of speech.
The Taliban spokesman got a question about freedom of speech and he said the question should be asked to US companies like Facebook who claim to promote it while still censoring pic.twitter.com/woXd5RRCWK
— Liam McCollum (@MLiamMcCollum) August 17, 2021
The Taliban's relationship with social media is certainly not a storyline we expected to be following just a few days ago.