Panel of journalists calls on Taliban to lift Facebook ban in Afghanistan

Kabul: Amid the recently surfaced reports of restriction of Facebook in Afghanistan, the ‘Committee to Protect Journalists’ based in the United States called on the Taliban government to reverse this decision, according to Khaama Press.

On Tuesday, in response to reports of Afghanistan’s ban on Facebook, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) distributed newsletters expressing their concerns and calling on the de facto regime to reverse this decision.

According to the agency, Afghanistan’s Facebook ban creates barriers to the free movement of information.

The Committee to Protect Journalists’ response follows earlier announcement made to TOLONews by Najibullah Haqqani, the acting minister for Telecommunications and Information Technology, that the ministry’s strategy to restrict or block Facebook in Afghanistan, reported Khaama Press.

Haqqani justified the restriction, saying that the purpose of this policy was to stop young people from wasting their time and money and to stop the spread of ‘immoral’ ideas.  Facebook is still more popular among Afghan citizens than other social networks. However it is unclear how many of them use it at the moment.

The game PUBG, as well as video sharing social networking service, TikTok were previously banned by the Taliban’s Ministry of Telecommunications and Information Technology. (ANI)

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