Taliban Backs ‘Free Speech’ Elon Musk in Twitter vs. Threads War

In front of a Taliban flag, Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid speaks at at his first ne
AP Photo/Rahmat Gul
Frances Martel

Anas Haqqani, a senior Taliban official and member of the notorious Haqqani Network jihadist organization, endorsed Twitter over its nascent Facebook rival Threads on Monday, celebrating pro-China owner Elon Musk for allegedly protecting “freedom of speech.”

Haqqani condemned Facebook and Threads’s parent organization, “Meta,” for being “intolerant,” presumably to Sunni jihadist ideology, in a post on Twitter apparently indicating that the de facto Afghan government and terrorist organization’s plans to continue using Twitter as its preferred publicity platform for the foreseeable future.

Meta launched Threads last week, marketing it as a “sanely run” alternative to Twitter, suggesting more limits on speech on the platform. Threads notably began its run last week by censoring Donald Trump, Jr., on its first day, warning users that his account allegedly offended “our independent fact-checkers.”

Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg explicitly compared the social media network to Twitter, which he claimed had not “nailed” its function to users. The Facebook corporation claimed that over 50 million new profiles were created on Threads during its first day of operation, generating 95 million posts.

Reports surfacing this weekend indicate that Twitter is considering legal action against Facebook over potential intellectual property theft and copyright issues given the similarities between Twitter and Threads. Musk, who has been attempting to fuel a public feud with Zuckerberg to generate publicity, cryptically posted “competition is fine, cheating is not” on Twitter shortly after the debut of Threads.

The Taliban, whose leaders use Twitter prolifically, took over Afghanistan following leftist President Joe Biden’s disastrous extension of the 20-year war in Afghanistan in 2021, which ended with an abrupt withdrawal that prompted then-President Ashraf Ghani to flee the country and leave Kabul in the hands of the Sunni jihadist group. It has since governed Afghanistan without any significant challenge to its rule, despite no country officially recognizing the Taliban as anything more than an “interim” government body.

Anas Haqqani serves the Taliban in an unspecified “senior” role, which he obtained after being released in a prisoner swap in 2019. He has since taken on a prominent public role in urging Afghan government officials who fled the country after Ghani abandoned it to return and help the Taliban with bureaucratic affairs.

He weighed into the debate over Meta’s challenge to Twitter on Monday with an endorsement of the latter.

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

Taliban leaders have shown a preference for Twitter long before Musk purchased the platform and remain highly active online. Only about 15 percent of Afghans have access to the internet, indicating that their posts are mostly meant for an international audience, even when written in Pashto or other regional languages. The jihadist group releases many of its official “government” statements through the official account of its top spokesman, Zabihullah Mujahid. The official spokesman of the Taliban’s “Foreign Affairs Ministry,” Abdul Qahar Balkhi, is also a prolific user, sharing images of high-level meetings with foreign officials and other state business. The official Taliban news agency, Bakhtar, also maintains Twitter profiles in multiple languages and updates regularly.

 

Upon taking control of the country in 2021, the Taliban suggested they were interested in free speech – taking swipes at Facebook along the way. Facebook has maintained a policy of forbidding Taliban propaganda on its platforms for years.

“The Taliban is sanctioned as a terrorist organization under U.S. law and we have banned them from our services under our Dangerous Organization policies,” a Facebook spokesperson asserted after the fall of Kabul in 2021 (the Afghan Taliban is not a designated foreign terrorist organization in the United States; the Pakistani Taliban, a separate organization, is).

Asked if the Taliban would respect freedom of speech and dissent in Afghanistan that year, Mujahid, the top spokesman, said “This question should be asked to those people who are claiming to be promoters of freedom of speech, who do not allow publication of all information and news. I can ask Facebook. This question should be asked to them.”

Mujahid went on to claim that the Taliban was “committed” to freedom of the press “within our cultural frameworks.”

“Private media can continue to be free and independent, they can continue their activities – with some requests for the media. One, is that Islam is a very important value in our country and nothing should be against Islamic values,” he asserted.

Mild as the Taliban spokesman’s comments were, Taliban thugs began to assault and kill journalists almost immediately after the terrorists stormed Kabul. Female journalists, like all women, found themselves banned from leaving the house – a ban the Taliban has yet to lift at press time.

Despite its record of extreme brutality, both when it ruled Afghanistan in the 1990s and today, the Taliban has found a home for its messaging on Twitter, in addition to corporate leftist media entities in America such as the New York Times. Much like Twitter owner Elon Musk, the Taliban has used its media platforms to promote closer cooperation with communist China, despite the fact that Beijing is currently engaging in genocide against Muslim populations on the Afghan border. Taliban leaders have welcomed Chinese regime investment in Afghanistan and membership in China’s predatory Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) in exchange for silence on the Muslim genocide.

Musk has not publicly endorsed the Taliban, but shares its enthusiasm for communist China. The car company Tesla, which Musk owns, maintains a showroom in Urumqi, occupied East Turkistan – the heart of China’s Uyghur genocide. Musk visited China in early June to inspect a Tesla factory in Shanghai and meet with senior Communist Party officials, making time for a lavish customized feast in Beijing.

Last week, Musk’s Tesla joined signatories of a letter of commitment vowing to uphold “core socialist values” for access to the Chinese electric vehicle market alongside Chinese manufacturers. That same week, he expressed support for communist support of global artificial intelligence development, telling a Shanghai AI conference, “I admire the Chinese people’s wisdom and determination. As long as the Chinese people decide to do well in one thing, they will, including in AI.”

Follow Frances Martel on Facebook and Twitter.

 

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