Social Media's Taliban Conundrum | Maryland Smith - Robert H. Smith School of Business

The U.S. military’s abrupt Afghanistan withdrawal has left social media companies facing a complex new set of policy decisions.

Maryland Smith’s Jui Ramaprasad said the subsequent Taliban takeover is especially problematic for the likes of Facebook and YouTube, which categorize the Taliban as “a dangerous organization” in accordance with the group being sanctioned as a terrorist organization under U.S. law. Facebook, for example, applies the policy when it shuts down a Taliban-affiliated account.

But as the Taliban positions itself as a legitimate governing body, it also has been social media savvy for years, via the ability of its members and supporters to operate substantially within the rules of the likes Twitter, Instagram and Facebook. These factors suggest a potential easing of restrictions on the Taliban.

But at the same time, Facebook stands out for continuing to silence former President Donald Trump – a conflict that it would need to reconcile, as Ramaprasad, an associate professor of information systems, recently told Forbes. “It is still unclear what role platforms like Twitter and Facebook want to take in managing the information that they facilitate the spread of,” she said. “Though Facebook has instituted the Oversight Board – ‘The Facebook Supreme Court’ – and Twitter has become more active in suspending and even banning accounts, e.g., Donald Trump, a clear policy on what constitutes the criteria for suspension or account locking is lacking.”.

Ramaprasad...



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