My latest in PJ Media:
Old Joe Biden’s handlers have done a great deal for the Taliban in the last week, but one thing they can’t do is ensure that the jihad group receives the same kind of fawning, sycophantic press treatment that the Biden administration gets here at home, or at least did up until this debacle in Afghanistan. And so it was that a Taliban spokesman was asked Tuesday about the Taliban’s commitment to the freedom of speech, which is rather like asking Josef Stalin about his commitment to safeguarding capitalism in the Soviet Union. The Taliban spokesman, however, responded with a deft bit of whataboutery that showed he wasn’t some bumpkin who just rode into Kabul on a donkey to see the big doings: “This question should be asked to those people who pretend to be promoters of freedom of speech who do not allow publication of all information. I could ask Facebook company. This question should be asked of them.”
It’s to laugh, it’s to cry. The Taliban guy’s answer didn’t tell us anything about the Taliban’s commitment to the freedom of speech, which is nonexistent anyway, as criticism of Islam is outlawed on penalty of death by the Islamic law that the Taliban have vowed to implement, but it was interesting to see that the news about the determination of Facebook, and presumably also the other social media giants, to stamp out dissent from the Leftist agenda has traveled all the way to the farthest reaches of Afghanistan. Many Americans seem to assume that the Taliban are a bunch of half-savage Luddites from the sticks, but they turn out to be quite aware of the wider world, and quite certain of their place in it.
There is more. Read the rest here.
b.a. freeman says
the taliban is INDEED a beneficiary of social media companies! i had not realized that WhatsApp allowed them to use its platform for communication. the NSA is supposed to be *full* of the best crackers in the world, yet nobody at the top thought to ask them for help. i haven’t started working on android yet, so i don’t know a lot about phone apps (i’m an old fart, anyway, and i bought my old phone – a so-called “feature” phone, not a smartphone – over 15 years ago), but even *I* could have pointed the PHBs in the deep state at the right thing to do. what a bunch of morons! it’s pretty sad when the taliban is better than our own government (or rather, the *nazi* government).
CogitoErgoSum says
For a bunch of “cave men” they are pretty good at using 21st century technology. Just think what they can do now that they have the latest in military tech. They can put together one of the best equipped armies in the world. Thank you very much, Joe Biden. I wonder how many lives of American soldiers he saved today … and how many lives he’s required to be sacrificed in the future.
Don McKellar says
Devastating.
But it will be completely lost on Facebook’s totalitarians. And on Twitter’s, where the 45th President is blocked from speech, but the Taliban’s spokesman is not.
gravenimage says
Grimly spot on, Don.
gravenimage says
Taliban Spox Gives Epic Response When Asked About Free Speech: ‘Ask Facebook’
………………..
Grotesque–of course he did not answere the question. But given the history of the Islam in general and the Taliban specifically, it was a stupid thing to ask in the first place.
But Facebook and Twitter seem fine with the Taliban themselves:
“Taliban leaders freely used Twitter and Facebook’s WhatsApp as they took power in Afghanistan”
https://www.jihadwatch.org/2021/08/taliban-leaders-are-freely-using-twitter-and-facebooks-whatsapp
It’s only if you are conservative or *oppose* Jihad that freedom of speech is a problem on these platforms…
Fitna says
Indeed Graven, well Twitter is an easy one to explain, they’re run by radical Lefties who like to lick Muslim boots and they’re partly owned by Saudi Arabia-so no surprise they’re going to be pro-Islamic and anti-anyone who opposes Islam.
I’ve said some mild criticism about Islam and got suspended. I’m done with Twitter….as for FB and the rest, similar issue, far-Left idiots trying to crush Conservatives who they see as their real enemy, which includes those who oppose Islam. It’s a very ugly situation.
In censorship someone is always gaining at someone else’s expense. Islam thrives in ignorance. Once it’s exposed then it’s more easily destroyed. There are hundreds perhaps thousands of Muslim groups/organizations pushing for more censorship as well because they don’t want the masses to find out about their real agenda until it’s too late, it’s the modern-day Nazism.
James Lincoln says
Fitna says,
“Islam thrives in ignorance. Once it’s exposed then it’s more easily destroyed.”
Very true.
If the mainstream media had practiced due diligence / proper journalism for the past 50 years, islam could have been affected marginalized.
somehistory says
In my mind, he’s saying they get to decide what “speech is free,” because fb and the twit make those decisions every day. No one stops these companies from making those decisions and cutting people off who offend them; disagreement “offends” and is not allowed. Social “death” to the one who refuses to submit to their control
mozlums with power decide for everyone else what speech can be free and what will get tongues stilled and throats cut. And in this terrorist’s mind, no one can stop them from deciding and cutting people off who dissent. Death to the one who refuses to submit to the control of islam.
Infidel says
Like I mentioned in another thread, Twitter has shut down the VP of Afghanistan, who’s right now resurrecting the Northern Alliance in the Panjsher valley, while it allows the Taliban to go unchecked
https://www.opindia.com/2021/08/twitter-amrullah-saleh-office-account-suspended/
tgusa says
Taliban vs Facebook. Who will win? Will it be the determined and not so privileged un-bathed bearded guy with a gun or the indeterminate and privileged well groomed guy with a fist full of dollars? I suppose Mark could try to curry favor with the CCP but I have never seen them to be particularly friendly to, nor like and respect advise from, pale face red headed outsiders..Mark better have a deep bunker or an established rat line out of the fray because at this point all sides despise him. And so it goes from, who will win to where will the loser go?
SKA says
Much less a “yahoodi” outsider.
Infidel says
@Jack looks like a jihadist: can’t he just recite the shehada and become an adviser to the Taliban leadership?
tgusa says
“Taliban leadership”
I don’t believe that will work. In spite of the beard he sticks out like a sore thumb. He strikes me as the type of guy that would hide under the bed if the Taliban came knocking on his front door. I could be wrong but I doubt it.