this post was submitted on 10 Jul 2023
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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.

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[–] NOT_RICK@lemmy.world 164 points 1 year ago (5 children)

Pretty funny to see a member of the Taliban espouse freedom of speech. I really doubt that

[–] agitatedpotato@lemmy.world 137 points 1 year ago (2 children)

It's just like Elons definition. To these people freedom of speech means freedom to say what they want and not be challenged by pesky things like facts.

[–] NOT_RICK@lemmy.world 50 points 1 year ago

Freedom from consequence for me but not for thee

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[–] Viper_NZ@lemmy.nz 20 points 1 year ago

Freedom of their speech

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[–] xc2215x@lemmy.world 122 points 1 year ago (8 children)

This is not a good look. The Taliban supporting something is never good.

[–] AFKBRBChocolate@lemmy.world 22 points 1 year ago (5 children)

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.

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[–] Silverstrings@lemmy.blahaj.zone 12 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Funnily enough they also endorsed Trump before the 2020 election.

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[–] NevermindNoMind@lemmy.world 9 points 1 year ago

Twitter, the only social network endorsed by the Taliban and caturd! What's not to love?

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[–] johnnyjayjay@feddit.de 77 points 1 year ago (4 children)
[–] WarmSoda@lemm.ee 16 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Sweet. Thank you for the link! Is there an ate the onion community out there yet?

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[–] astral_avocado@lemmynsfw.com 62 points 1 year ago (4 children)

“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.

I know it's the Taliban but I cannot believe how braindead they are. They don't even remember that they're so anti free speech, they'll hunt down and kill dissidents especially women who have the guts to get an education.

[–] c2h6@lemmy.world 41 points 1 year ago

The taliban and Musk share the same values, then - to both of them, free speech means "you can say anything, as long as its what I like".

[–] Lenins2ndCat@lemmy.world 9 points 1 year ago

See also: The CIA award for excellence in journalism.

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[–] TheTechNerd@lemmy.world 62 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

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

I am dead

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[–] Uniquitous@lemmy.one 59 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Twitter: The terrorist's choice.

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[–] LexiconDexicon@lemmy.world 53 points 1 year ago (3 children)

I remember back around 2012-2013 ISIS using twitter to post gore videos and twitter was lazy asf about dealing with it

[–] 50gp@kbin.social 17 points 1 year ago (2 children)

social media sites give 0 fucks about properly moderating anything but popular euro languages

[–] johnnyjayjay@feddit.de 13 points 1 year ago

At the time Facebook fueled a genocide in Myanmar they had practically no moderation for Burmese content, if I recall correctly.

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[–] obinice@lemmy.world 40 points 1 year ago (4 children)

Hahahaha this is genuinely HILARIOUS.

Thank you, I needed that.

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[–] Decimit@lemmy.world 39 points 1 year ago

Terrorists like Elon Musk. That seems like his plan.

[–] iamthatis@lemmy.world 35 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Prolly the best endorsement for Threads over Twitter. Dang never thought I'd be rooting for Mark

[–] foleac@discuss.tchncs.de 34 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

I am rooting for neither. This is not a lesser of two evils situation. Lemmy, Mastodon, and others do exist.

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[–] UpperBroccoli@feddit.de 33 points 1 year ago (2 children)

But the real question is: which platform would Hitler use?

...not that I'd expect the answer to differ.

[–] GewoehnlicherHamster@feddit.de 20 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)
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[–] Poob@lemmy.ca 30 points 1 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@lemmy.world 29 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (18 children)

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.

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[–] easterner@lemmy.world 25 points 1 year ago

I mean, total clickbait article but hilarious nontheless.

[–] Mr_Buscemi@lemmy.blahaj.zone 24 points 1 year ago (2 children)

This was a title I didn't expect to read today.

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[–] Ktheone@lemmy.world 22 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

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.

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[–] Sauvandu59@lemmy.world 20 points 1 year ago (9 children)

if they really want freedom of speech, then they should use gab.com

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[–] Yoz@lemmy.world 20 points 1 year ago (2 children)

So I read threads google play store reviews and most of them are bots. I think meta is using bots to hype threads downloads and stupid media might have taken money from zuck to post the news. Influencers and celebrities are definitely paid to use threads and the sheeps follow.

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This is so sad that it's fucking hilarious. Now we have social media competing for the fucking worst human beings on the planet to join their platform. It just goes to show how being an evil asshole is profitable. 😼

[–] ChaoticEntropy@feddit.uk 17 points 1 year ago

Do they also drink Wolf Cola?

[–] null_@lemmy.world 17 points 1 year ago

Twitter: owned by Saudi Arabia, endorsed by the Taliban. Great new tagline!

[–] jray4559@lemmy.fmhy.ml 16 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Ah, yes, I was waiting for the Taliban to tell me which one of these two online clusterfucks to start using.

I'm surprised they even care about Twitter, wouldn't they want to be underground?

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[–] Goun@lemmy.ml 14 points 1 year ago

Why endorse a social media app? What kind of war are they fighting

[–] kokesh@lemmy.world 14 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I think the Dear Leader KJU should also hop on the Musk train.

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[–] Trollmittens@lemmy.world 12 points 1 year ago

The Talliban accusing a company (Meta) of having intolerant policies is perhaps the most insanely hypocritical thing I've heard. I love it! "They don't tolerate our intolerance"

[–] Neato@kbin.social 11 points 1 year ago (2 children)

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

Isn't it illegal to take money from terrorist organizations?

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[–] Borgzilla@lemmy.ca 10 points 1 year ago (2 children)

The Taliban should spin up their own Mastodon instance.

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[–] stink_pickle@lemmy.world 9 points 1 year ago

"Twitter doesn’t have an intolerant policy like Meta. Other platforms cannot replace it.” -- if your brain shutdown at this point as well, I'd like to welcome you to... if your brain shutdown at this point as well

[–] solidgrue@lemmy.world 8 points 1 year ago

Wow. When you've lost the Talaban who do you have, really?

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