‘Blue Tick’ Taliban account?
Is the problem Taliban Will be allowed to communicate through the official accounts of the Afghan government departments-some of which have tens of thousands of followers and “blue tick” verification-have yet to receive a reply.
Chima suggested that, for now, marking content from Taliban operating accounts with a disclaimer is still “a measure in the toolkit”.
According to Kabir Taneja, a Delhi-based counter-terrorism analyst, it is clear that the Taliban have recognized the power of social media as a weapon they could not obtain during their administration from 1996 to 2001.
“They learned a lot about the power of communication from other organizations such as ISIS,” Taneja said.
Over the years, the Taliban have become good at posting and have been particularly active on Twitter and Facebook during the spring offensive, eventually winning.
However, Taneja warned that they could also seek to restrict Afghans’ access to the Internet and pointed to footage of anti-Taliban protesters circulating in Jalalabad this week.
“Such incidents may prompt the Taliban to strictly control Internet penetration in the future,” Tanedja said.
