Facebook has decided not to lift its ban on Taliban even if US stops imposing sanctions on the group. The US State Department does not list the Afghan Taliban as a Foreign Terrorist Organization like it does the Pakistani Taliban. But Washington does sanction the group as a “Specially Designated Global Terrorist,” which freezes the US assets of those blacklisted and bars Americans from working with them.
Facebook’s vice president of content policy Monika Bickert said on a call with reporters, “They will not be allowed while they are prescribed by the US law and even if they were not prescribed by US law, we would have to do a policy analysis on whether or not they nevertheless violate our dangerous organizations policy”.
Facebook designates Taliban as a terrorist group and bans it from its all platforms. Major tech companies have faced scrutiny about how they will handle the group that has seized control in Afghanistan following a withdrawal of US troops. Alphabet’s YouTube said that it bans the group due to US sanctions, but Twitter has allowed the group to have a presence.
The Taliban have become digitally savvy and now use a wide range of social media platforms and messaging services like Facebook-owned WhatsApp and Telegram to communicate with Afghan citizens and the international community.
