Anas Haqqani, a senior leader in the Taliban, has officially endorsed Twitter over Facebook-owned competitor Threads.

“Twitter has two important advantages over other social media platforms,” Haqqani said in an English post on Twitter. “The first privilege is the freedom of speech. The second privilege is the public nature & credibility of Twitter. Twitter doesn’t have an intolerant policy like Meta. Other platforms cannot replace it.”

Twitter has fallen out of favor with many people since Elon Musk took over the company last year…The Taliban, however, seems to love it. Two Taliban officials even bought blue verification check marks after Musk started selling them in January.

Haqqani noted that the biggest draw of Twitter was this lax moderation policy…Facebook and TikTok both view the Taliban as a terrorist organization and disallow them from posting. It’s a ban that persists to this day.

    • AFK BRB Chocolate
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      181 year ago

      A handful of years ago, US Republicans were losing their shit over Muslims and the Taliban, basically saying they were the biggest threat. I’m honestly waiting for them to realize that their views are almost completely aligned with the Taliban’s. Both against abortion and LGBTQ rights, both want religion in schools and to get rid of the separation of church and state, etc. It doesn’t at all surprise me that Republicans and the Taliban have the same preferred social media.

      • @CyanFen@lemmy.one
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        61 year ago

        Just like how people you can’t stand the most just subconsciously remind you of yourself, republicans can’t stand the taliban because it’s like looking in a mirror for them.

      • R0cket_M00se
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        21 year ago

        That’s because they’re both authoritarians.

        It’s the same reason Tankies hate Nazi’s when they’re both essentially the same thing in practice despite their economic outlooks being opposite. Authoritarianism is authoritarianism, everything else is just a different flavor.

        Christian authoritarians think they’re good and muslim’s sharia law bad, but in reality they’re just two religions trying to force their shit on everyone else. They physically cannot see that it’s the same because to them it’s “morally correct” and therefore not authoritarianism.

      • @FinalBoy1975@lemmy.world
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        21 year ago

        It makes no sense but it makes sense to the general public. When it ceases to make sense to the general public, it will be seen as you and I see it. I’m not holding my breath until the general public figures this out. You really can’t fix dumb and uneducated. It’s what politicians count on. Your dumb and uneducated vote manipulated by key terms thrown out there and reproduced in whatever media you like and is willing to send to you.

    • MxM111
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      21 year ago

      Well, it depends on what do you wish for Twitter.

    • R0cket_M00se
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      11 year ago

      It’s the Taliban, the appropriate action is to ignore everything they say because they’re religious extremists who commit violent actions against random citizens of their own and other nations.

      I they said Twitter was bad and endorsed Threads would you still give a shit? lol

  • @TheTechNerd@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    “Two Taliban officials even bought blue verification check marks after Musk started selling them in January”

    I am dead

  • Obinice
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    331 year ago

    Hahahaha this is genuinely HILARIOUS.

    Thank you, I needed that.

    • @Shardikprime@lemmy.world
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      21 year ago

      Twitter had been like that even before Elon tho. Let’s not also forget Facebook is fine and dandy with ISIS and other extremist groups

      • @FabioTheNewOrder@lemmy.world
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        11 year ago

        That should be a good thing in your view tho, no? Aren’t you the one defending the presence of extremists into online platforms? Shouldn’t Facebook and Twitter allow and even put under the spotlight these kind of ideologies?

        Fuck it man, go for a full racist party then; why limit yourself to institutionalised racism when you can have ignorant racism directly?

          • @FabioTheNewOrder@lemmy.world
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            11 year ago

            As far as I am aware the only openly racist party being allowed on social media is the alt-right (the institutionalised right on the other hand is still clever enough to keep its racism hidden behind a façade of economics bullshit).

            Pray tell, which extremist left wing organisation have been supporting twitter, threads or any other social media platform?

            And since you are there, can you please explain how can you post a message without using your brain?

  • @Poob@lemmy.ca
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    231 year ago

    I’m speechless at how ludicrous this headline is. I feel like even the Onion would reject it for being too bonkers.

  • AlmightySnoo 🐢🇮🇱🇺🇦
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    1 year ago

    Not that this changes anything but it’s worth noting that the Taliban were provided a platform on Twitter even before they took power and before even Elon acquired it.

    Right now Facebook is also full of hate-speech by Islamists who circumvent hate-speech filters by writing in Arabic or Parsi, as Meta’s AI in those languages is a complete failure, very biased as it’s trained on hateful content already as laws in those countries favor hate-speech (as an example, in Saudi Arabia being an atheist is considered “terrorism” and in most MENA countries homophobic content is normal) and moderators are sourced locally and hence also very biased.

    There’s a disturbing trend of big tech being comfortable hosting extremists and borderline terrorist spokespeople. And my unpopular guess is that it is obviously because the US wants the Taliban and other Islamist groups to be legitimized. Why? I’m not sure, geopolitics is totally above my pay grade. But it is clear that historically the US had no issues siding with hardcore Islamists in the MENA region and right now there is a clear trend to normalize Islamist propaganda online.

    Reminder that the Taliban are still preventing girls from going to school since they took over, despite a certain president assuring us that the US isn’t abandoning Afghan women and that the Taliban have “changed” anyway, and they cracked down on female university students too.

    • @MercuryUprising@lemmy.world
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      51 year ago

      They’re okay with it because it looks good for the bean counters and KPIs. There’s no KPI for “we removed hate speech visibility by 50%” but there is one for “we got 50 million new users from MENA on our platform to show ads to.”

    • @SCB@lemmy.world
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      21 year ago

      Why is Facebook not beholden to the countries in which it provides service to provide the service those countries and people prefer?

      Your problem is with those countries and people, not with social media.

      • @MercuryUprising@lemmy.world
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        181 year ago

        “We should let actual terrorists communicate and radicalize others, because there’s a block button already. PS: I’m very smart.”

            • @SCB@lemmy.world
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              -11 year ago

              How does not wanting my family (or myself - not sure why you made it sexist) to live there at all relevant?

              If you want the world to declare unilateral war on authoritarian despot nations I’m all for that, but as I recall that view seems to be “Imperialist.”

              How do you square these feelings in your head?

                • @SCB@lemmy.world
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                  1 year ago

                  I wasn’t the person you asked, but I am in favor of everyone who wants to escape any authoritarian state to be able to leave.

                  In fact, I am for the free movement of people as a natural right, coupled with absolute open borders, defended with military force by a coalition of world governments.

                  I am strongly anti-authoritarian. I just don’t see how it is Facebook’s responsibility to effect change in hostile nation-states.

  • @Ktheone@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    This may seem surprising, but Parag Agarwal, the Twitter CEO before elongated muskrat had a history of supporting isis views from his old tweets (there was a whole news article on it that has sadly been deleted). Really twitter CEOs have been fucked up politically since the beginning.

      • @Mr_Blott@lemmy.world
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        81 year ago

        This comment made me open an incognito window and type in gab.com and I can assure you “Dear lord” is an understatement

        The top post is a horrifyingly racist diatribe by an “American of Japanese descent” then the second post is Tru*mp insisting that 'ol Joe has a coke problem

        WTF

        • Obinice
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          61 year ago

          I tried it too, but it seems my pihole already has that domain fully blocked. Probably for the best.

          Phew, good little pihole!

          • @Mr_Blott@lemmy.world
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            21 year ago

            I’m halfway through setting one up but having trouble with it potentially buggering up my streaming TV box that came with the router. Wife will kill me if she can’t watch her Poirot