In the wake of the US’ continued withdrawal from Afghanistan, the Taliban has overtaken the capital city of Kabul, and has overthrown the Afghanistan government. Due to the following panic and unrest throughout the middle-eastern country, the Taliban created a WhatsApp-based helpline for citizens to raise concerns over related violence. Now, Facebook has blocked that channel and several other official Taliban accounts.
Facebook restricts any Taliban support
The Taliban has set up such helplines before, says The Financial Times, which also reports that Facebook is currently looking for any and all WhatsApp groups with names and descriptions that suggest similar operations to shut them down as they are created. It’s employing the help of translators to investigate group content to route out accounts linked to the Taliban.
Facebook and WhatsApp can’t see group and private messages directly, due to their own encryption practices and privacy rules, hence why they’re going off of group names and descriptions.
According to The Next Web, Facebook told AFP news that it doesn’t have or enforce its own opinions on “the recognised government in any particular country” but rather defers to international consensus, meaning it’s falling in line with US sanctions concerning Afghanistan and the Taliban by blocking these accounts.
“The Taliban is sanctioned as a terrorist organization under U.S. law and they are banned from our services under our Dangerous Organization policies,” said Facebook in a statement. “This means we remove accounts maintained by or on behalf of the Taliban and prohibit praise, support, and representation of them.”