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The Taliban have announced that they will ban TikTok because it promotes violence, despite their fighters sharing atrocities on the battlefield to sow fear among their enemies on the platform.
The Taliban’s telecommunications ministry said the popular app and PUBG, an online game, will be banned in the country within weeks.
“TikTok has been distributing immoral and non-Islamic content and videos in an Islamic country among the very vulnerable youth of Afghanistan, and we must block this for the sake of the future of our youth,” a Taliban official told MailOnline.
Taliban fighters use social media to share their battlefield atrocities to spread fear among their enemies
“They’re just destroying our young people by promoting the western lifestyle. We live in an Islamic country and these platforms are spreading content against it,” he said.
“Facebook also distributes the same kind of content. Our young people waste time on that. It is our duty to care for young people,” the official said.
Internet service providers were told they have the next 30 days as “the deadline” to ban TikTok, the telecommunications ministry said in a statement.
People will be blocked from using the popular apps in the country.
Afghanistan’s new rulers announced the decision in a meeting with security sector representatives and a representative of the Sharia law enforcement administration.
It comes after a recent ban on music, movies and television soap operas, in which the Taliban destroyed musical instruments.
Internet service providers were told they have the next 30 days as “the deadline” to ban TikTok, the telecommunications ministry said in a statement.
Afghanistan’s telecommunications and internet service providers have shared the information about the ban and have been asked to follow the guidelines within the stipulated time.
It comes as Taliban fighters use social media to share their atrocities on the battlefield to spread fear among their enemies.
A video filmed and shared on the Taliban’s social media accounts shows a group of five blindfolded fighters tied behind them before being executed by cheering Taliban members.
They have also banned TV channels from broadcasting what they consider “immoral material” and some have even been told not to broadcast foreign films and shows.
Previously, the Taliban have said they have blocked more than 23 million websites from displaying what they consider “immoral” content in the year since the Taliban took power in the country.
“We’ve blocked 23.4 million websites. They change their pages every time. So if you block one website, another is active,” Taliban communications minister Najibullah Haqqani said at a conference last month.
At the same conference, Deputy Communications Minister Ahmad Masoud Latif Rai also criticized Facebook for its unwillingness to cooperate with the Taliban authorities on content moderation.
Following the collapse of the US-backed government and the withdrawal of US troops from the country, an interim Afghan government led by the Taliban came to power on August 15 last year.
Previously, the Taliban have said they have blocked more than 23 million websites from displaying what they consider “immoral” content in the year since the Taliban took power in the country.
Since the Taliban took over Afghanistan in mid-August last year, they have reversed the rights of Afghan media and their functioning
The Taliban takeover caused an economic crisis and food shortages that have pushed the country to the brink of a humanitarian crisis.
Thousands of Afghans have fled the country in fear of the Taliban, the widespread violation of human rights and the deprivation of women and girls of their freedoms.
Since the Taliban took over Afghanistan in mid-August last year, they have reversed the rights of the Afghan media and their functioning.
According to the United Nations, significant changes have taken place in the country’s media landscape, including the closure of more than half of its free media, bans on various channels and websites, and increasing work restrictions, violence and threats against journalists.
Following the collapse of the US-backed government and the withdrawal of US troops from the country, an interim Afghan government led by the Taliban came to power on August 15 last year.
Taliban fighters celebrate a year since they captured the Afghan capital, Kabul, in front of the US embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan, Monday, August 15, 2022
More than 300 Afghan news channels have been shut down since the Taliban took over Kabul in the summer of 2021, according to international media freedom organizations.
More than a thousand reporters have lost their jobs, and hundreds of them have left the country, fearing retaliation from the Taliban after Afghanistan’s new rulers labeled journalists as their ‘enemy’.
Afghanistan’s thriving media sector, one of the greatest achievements of 20 years of international community presence, is now collapsing.
They banned women from appearing in dramas and ordered the channels to stop broadcasting foreign TV dramas, including those produced in Islamic countries such as Iran.
In May, Afghanistan’s Supreme Leader, Hibatullah Akhundzada, issued a mandate for women to fully cover themselves in public, including their faces, ideally with the traditional burqa.
The dreaded Ministry for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice ordered female television presenters to follow suit.