Afghanistan: Twitter suspends accounts of Amrullah Saleh's office; Taliban still active

In a significant development, micro-blogging site Twitter on Thursday suspended all accounts related to Afghanistan's caretaker President Amrullah Saleh. Under this action, Twitter has suspended operations of Afghan President's official handle - @Afghanpresident and his party Afghanistan Green Trend's (AGT) handle - @AfgGreenTrend. latest development comes as Saleh continues to mobilise forces to counter Taliban takeover of Afghanistan. caretaker President is holed up in Panjshir province, which is yet to fall into hands of Taliban. 

Taliban accounts active on Twitter

It is important to mention that even as Twitter bans Amrullah Saleh and accounts of his party, Taliban continues to remain active on its platform. Twitter hosts several accounts of Taliban leers who boast of scores of followers on platform. Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid who has an active presence on Twitter enjoys more than 310K followers which are growing by hour. Anor spokesman, Qari Yousaf Ahmi, has more than 63K followers, while Suhail Shaheen has over 350K. All accounts have been gaining prominence for regularly tweeting about capture of cities by Taliban and sharing videos of press conferences by group's leers which have drawn hundreds of responses from supporters on Twitter.

Twitter refuses to take action against Taliban

Most social media and tech giants such as Facebook, WhatsApp and TikTok have moved swiftly to ban Taliban and its supporters from using ir platform. Twitter on or hand has refrained from taking outright action against militant group. Amid Afghanistan crisis, site has said that it was constantly monitoring situation and was 'vigilant' with regards to content that was being shared on its platform.

On being asked if Twitter would join Facebook, TikTok and or tech companies in banning terror group, a spokesperson said in a statement it would “continue to proactively enforce” its rules on “glorification of violence, platform manipulation and spam.”

Unlike Twitter, Facebook has taken a hardline stance against Taliban and has banned Islamist fundamentalist group and its supporters from using its platforms. In a statement, company said that it considers group to be 'a terrorist organisation', according to a PTI report. company ded it has a dedicated team of Afghan experts to monitor and remove content linked to insurgent group.