Facebook and TikTok said Tuesday they won’t lift bans on content that promotes the Taliban after the group took control of Afghanistan.
The social media giants told CNBC they consider the Afghan group, which has used social media platforms to project its messages for years, to be a terrorist organization.
Facebook said it has a dedicated team of content moderators that is monitoring and removing posts, images, videos and other content related to the Taliban. It’s unclear how many people are on the team.
Afghanistan fell to the Islamic militant group over the weekend as it seized the capital of Kabul, including the Presidential Palace. After President Joe Biden’s April decision to withdraw U.S. troops from Afghanistan, the Taliban made stunning battlefield advances — and nearly the whole nation is now under the insurgents’ control.
A Facebook spokesperson told CNBC: “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.”
The Taliban has been banned from Facebook for several years, the spokesperson said.
Facebook said this means it removes accounts that are maintained by or on behalf of the Taliban, as well as those that praise, support and represent them.
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