And now? Now how should Twitter, Facebook and Google deal with the Taliban? After having banned for life a president of the United States in office, however outgoing, what should they do with the new masters of Afghanistan that the United States long ago indicated to be “a terrorist organization”?
The question is complex. Casey Newton, who is one of the leading experts on digital platforms, notes that when the longest war in the United States began almost twenty years ago, social networks did not exist and that in all these years it has been relatively easy to delete pro content. Taliban on social media (here, for example, YouTube, which is part of the Google group, claims to have always banned them). But now that they are the expression of a country’s government, what to do? On Twitter, since 2017 there is a spokesman for the Taliban which has over 300,000 followers (I guess some have become after the events of these days). While According to the Financial Times, the Taliban have been using channels on WhatsApp since 2016 to inform the population: Facebook closed them all on Tuesday.
It’s right raise the voice of the rulers of a country? Facebook recently did it with the military who took over Myanmar and so there is at least one precedent. But what to do while the international community waits to pronounce and the Taliban’s debut at the press conference was surprisingly mild? Keep a hard line or wait to see how events unfold? Closing the profiles of those who govern means going to a clash that would lead to the ban of platforms from the country, taking away from the population a fundamental tool for informing themselves and communicating. And indeed some organization that deals with civil rights he warned that in this way “the Afghans would be penalized”.
What to do? Pressed by the chroniclers’ questions, spokespersons for Google, Facebook and Twitter have so far given vague answers, trying to buy time. The events of the next few hours in Afghanistan will tip the balance to one side or the other.
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