The New York Times :
In one video, a Taliban official reassured female health workers that they could keep their jobs. In another, militants told Sikhs, a minority religious group, that they were free and protected. Still others suggested a new lawfulness in Kabul, Afghanistan, with Talib fighters holding looters and thieves at gunpoint.
The Taliban, who banned the internet the first time they controlled Afghanistan, have turned social media into a powerful tool to tame opposition and broadcast their messages. Now firmly in control of the country, they are using thousands of Twitter accounts – some official and others anonymous – to placate Afghanistan’s terrified but increasingly tech-savvy urban base.
The images of peace and stability projected by the Taliban contrast sharply with the scenes broadcast around the world of the chaotic US evacuation from the Kabul airport or footage of protesters being beaten and shot at. They demonstrate the digital powers the militants have honed over years of insurgency, offering a glimpse of how the Taliban could use those tools to rule Afghanistan, even as they cling to their fundamentalist religious tenets and violent proclivities.
Afghan social media may be a poor indicator of public sentiment. Many of the Taliban’s critics and supporters of the US-backed government have gone underground. But already, with a social media campaign in recent weeks that may have helped encourage Afghan security forces to put down their weapons, the Taliban have shown that they can effectively sell their message.
“They recognized that to win the war, it had to be done through narratives and stories,” said Thomas Johnson, a professor at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California. “In urban areas, all Afghans have smartphones, and I think it’s going to be very useful. They’re going to use social media to tell the Afghan people what they need to do.”
Online, the Taliban will now be targeted by some of the same tactics they used to cement their power, just as movements like the Arab Spring and others used social media to organize and rally. Afghanistan’s new communications tethers with the rest of the world will help the Taliban’s opponents expose any atrocities and drum up support for the resistance. Already, hashtags like #DonotChangeNationalFlag are spreading, with some combination of internal and external support.
The Taliban have responded to such calls – and to reports of crackdowns and reprisal killings by the victorious militants – with messages stressing a desire for peace and unity. The Taliban portray Americans and other foreigners as the primary cause of years of conflict – an idea that they have emphasized by using the startling images this week from the Kabul airport.
As shots of desperate refugees clinging to planes circulated, one of the best-known pro-Taliban influencers, Qari Saeed Khosty, struck a tone of doleful sympathy.
“I cried hard to see your situation. You, the friends of the occupation, we have similarly cried for you for 20 years. We told you that Tommy Ghani will never be loyal to you,” he wrote in a Twitter post, using slang for a person who adopts Western styles and customs to refer to Ashraf Ghani, the Afghan president who fled this week. “We have forgiven you, I swear to Allah. We are not for this situation. Please come back to your homes.”
Still, the Taliban – a group known during its 1996-2001 rule for public executions, sometimes by stoning – have largely kept their messages upbeat. Taliban citizen journalists ply the streets of newly captured cities with blue-capped microphones, offering videos of bland endorsement from residents.
“The Taliban don’t need to post content to remind the population they are brutal,” said Benjamin Jensen, a fellow at the Atlantic Council. “The population knows that. What they needed were images that showed they could govern and integrate the country.”
The Taliban have been able to post much of what they want online. Even as blocks on major social media platforms like Facebook and YouTube persist, dozens of new accounts have sprung up. The militants’ efforts have focused on Twitter, where the Taliban are not directly banned.
Some Taliban opponents have issued rallying cries. By contrast, others have fallen silent and scrubbed their accounts of material that could put them in danger. A female soccer player this week warned her former teammates to take photos down. Facebook and Twitter have said they would take steps to shield accounts.
