Top Motherboards

Taliban Endorses Twitter Over Threads


Anas Haqqani, a Taliban thought-leader with household connections to management, has formally endorsed Twitter over Fb-owned competitor Threads.

“Twitter has two necessary benefits over different social media platforms,” Haqqani stated in an English post on Twitter. “The primary privilege is the liberty of speech. The second privilege is the general public nature & credibility of Twitter. Twitter would not have an illiberal coverage like Meta. Different platforms can not substitute it.”

Talibendorsemennt.PNG

Taliban leader via Twitter.

Twitter has fallen out of favor with many individuals since Elon Musk took over the corporate final yr. Musk’s adjustments to verification and slackening moderation coverage have led a whole lot of subject material consultants, advertisers, and common customers to flee the platform. The Taliban, nonetheless, appears to like it. Two Taliban officers even purchased blue verification verify marks after Musk began promoting them in January.

Haqqani famous that the most important draw of Twitter was this lax moderation coverage. After the American withdrawal from Afghanistan and the collapse of the U.S.-backed Afghan central authorities in 2021, the Taliban turned the authentic leaders of the nation. The Taliban is aggressive about utilizing social media to push its message. Some former fighters have even bemoaned the period of time they spend on the pc in comparison with their freewheeling previous. Fb and TikTok each view the Taliban as a terrorist group and disallow them from posting. It’s a ban that persists to this present day.

To say that Twitter has had a whole lot of issues these days is an understatement. The location briefly restricted the quantity of tweets customers may see earlier this month, annihilated its credibility by charging for blue verification verify marks, and might’t maintain a lid on hate speech. Opponents like Bluesky and, now, Threads have rushed to fill the void.

However Bluesky is a bizarre place stuffed with pretty, if area of interest, shitposts. It’s additionally small compared to the newly launched Zuckerberg-backed knock off. Threads, regardless of garnering over 100 million customers within the week after it launched, seems like a desolate panorama the place manufacturers and influencers can speak to one another whereas everybody else watches. Many journalists and governments nonetheless use Twitter. Regardless of Musk’s errors, it’s nonetheless a spot the place, say, you may hear a Taliban official’s ideas on the present state of social media.

Aram Shabanian, an OSINT supervisor at New Traces Institute, advised Motherboard he was shocked that the Taliban would endorse the “up-and-coming warlordism of Elon Musk’s Twitter.” 

“Zuckerberg is clearly the Mullah Omar of this example,” Shabanian stated, referring to the founding father of the Taliban and former ruler of Afghanistan.. “You could not like him, however no less than you already know what you are getting. And it is uniform throughout platforms and districts. Not like going with Musk, who represents a lawless, profit-driven society. Musk is all balls, no shaft, as the traditional Armenian proverb goes.”

Replace 7/10/23: This text initially known as Haqqani a pacesetter of the Taliban. His function is extra philosophical.





Source link