Taliban Ban 'Immoral' TikTok In Afghanistan For 'Misleading Younger Generation'

The Taliban will be banning TikTok in Afghanistan as part of a moral policy campaign.

A deputy spokesman for the Taliban government announced the cabinet decision, instructing the Ministry of Communications to block the application. 

Inamullah Samangani tweeted the news saying TikTok ‘misleads the younger generation’, and ‘publishes immoral material and programs'.

As reported by Bloomberg, Sagmangani added that TikTok’s ‘filthy content was not consistent with Islamic laws’. 

The group will also be banning the South Korean video game PUBG: Battlegrounds claiming the app, as well as TikTok, were ‘wasting people’s time’. 

The Taliban ordered a ban against TikTok and the survival-shooter Player Unknown's Battlegrounds (PUBG) game on Thursday, insisting they were leading Afghanistan's youth astray. #TikTok

— Lina Rozbih (@LinaRozbih) April 21, 2022

Sarangani added that the Taliban ‘received a lot of complaints about how the TikTok app and the PUBG game are wasting people’s time’.

He said: “The ministry of communications and information technology was ordered to remove the apps from internet servers and make them inaccessible to everyone in Afghanistan.”

According to DataReportal’s 2022 report on Afghanistan, as of January 22.9 per cent of the country had access to the internet meaning there were 9.23 million internet users in total. 

The 2019 Survey of the Afghan People found 70.6 per cent of users used the internet for activities such as Facebook and other social media. 

TikTok and parent company ByteDance has faced stark opposition from multiple countries. 

India has backflipped between blocking and unblocking the app over the past two years, while countries such as Pakistan, Armenia, and Azerbaijan currently have bans on the app.

Indonesia and Bangladesh have censored content on TikTok in the past. 

Former United States President Donald Trump threatened to shut down the application back in 2020, believing the Chinese-made app was a threat to national security. 

Speaking to reporters in August 2020, he said: “As far as TikTok is concerned, we're banning them from the United States."

He then added: "Well, I have that authority. I can do it with an executive order or that [emergency economic powers]."

5 bombs went off in Afghanistan today - in Mazar, in Kunduz, in Kabul, and in Nangarhar.

The day started with a Taliban announcement banning TikTok and the video game PUBG. It’s going to end with a lesson for the government that there are much, much bigger things to focus on.

— Sulaiman Hakemy (@SulaimanHakemy) April 21, 2022

On 23 September 2020, TikTok filed an injunction to prevent the Trump administration from banning the app, which was approved on September 27.

The news in Afghanistan comes on the same day that at least 10 Afghans were killed and 40 injured during a powerful explosion in the city of Mazar-i-Sharif. 

It isn’t the only major explosion to happen in the middle-eastern country this week either - three explosions impacted a high school in western Kabul with six killed.