AFGHANISTAN: Social networking platform Twitter has removed the verification badges from the accounts of various Afghan government officials. As per the reports, Twitter has removed the blue verification badge from the Twitter accounts of the Foreign Ministry, Defence Ministry, Interior Ministry, Presidential Palace, and National Procurement Authority.
Last month, the Taliban captured Kabul after an aggressive advance against Afghanistan government forces amid the withdrawal of US and North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) troops from Afghanistan.
Afghanistan plunged into crisis last month after Kabul fell to the Taliban and the democratically elected government of former president Ashraf Ghani collapsed.
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Meanwhile, Twitter accounts of ex-Afghan officials still have the verification badges. Accounts of former President Ashraf Ghani, Hamid Karzai, Abdullah Abdullah remain verified. Verification badges of the current Afghan officials and institutions were removed. In addition, the blue badge has been removed from the account of former vice president Amrullah Saleh but it existed on the account of second Vice President Sarwar Danesh.
Days after the Kabul’s siege and the US and NATO allied forces’ withdrawal, the Taliban had expressed discontentment for a ban from Facebook, stating: “Our enemies have television, radio, verified accounts on social media and we have none, yet we fought with them on Twitter and Facebook and defeated them,” the Taliban appointed director of the social media Qari Saeed Khosty told the British Broadcasting Corp.’s team. The Taliban apparently stressed that it needed the voice on social media to “amplify our message”.
