Washington Post: Taliban rarely breaks social media rules with 'strikingly sophisticated' techniques

The Washington Post reported Wednesday that the Taliban has avoided breaking social media user rules by using "strikingly sophisticated" techniques and becoming "an expert at wielding the West's advanced communication technologies." 

The Post reported that, using those techniques, followers of the repressive, Islamist group have been able to mount a case to the world that they're ready to lead a modern Afghanistan. The Taliban has seized control of the Asian nation in the wake of the U.S. ending its 20-year military presence.

"For a group that espouses ancient moral codes, the Afghan Taliban has used strikingly sophisticated social media tactics to build political momentum and, now that they’re in power, to make a public case that they’re ready to lead a modern nation state after nearly 20 years of war," the Post wrote. 

"In accounts swelling across Facebook, Twitter and Instagram — and in group chats on apps such as WhatsApp and Telegram — the messaging from Taliban supporters typically challenges the West’s dominant image of the group as intolerant, vicious and bent on revenge, while staying within the evolving boundaries of taste and content that tech companies use to police user behavior," it added. 

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Social media giant Twitter has come under increasing scrutiny this week for allowing the Taliban to continue using its platform as it assumes violent control of Afghanistan. Critics have specifically called out Twitter's ban on former President Donald Trump and censoring of of right-leaning American accounts.

The Post claimed the Taliban's social media tactics showed "such a high degree of skill" that it's believed at least one public relations firm might be advising followers on how to push certain themes, describing one particular social media post showing fighters with their guns "under a gorgeous pink and blue sky." 

The Post stated that an uptick in online messages in recent months offered "a gentler, more reassuring face of the Taliban," noting its previous reign over Afghanistan was marred by mass executions, brutality of women, and worse. In what it called tactics that were part of a "broader charm offensive," the Post made note of Taliban spokessman Suhail Shaheen "calling on a female journalist and foreign reporters" at a press conference this week.

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Shaheen has more than 350,000 followers on Twitter and has tweeted that fighters had been instructed not to enter people's houses, and that they would not harm anyone's "life, property and honor," following the collapse of the Afghan government. However, Taliban's alliance with al Qaeda and other terrorist networks, reports of executions and hunts for those who aided the U.S., and scenes of terrified Afghan men, women, and children desperately trying to escape the country belie that narrative.

"The ability of the Taliban and its supporters to operate substantially within the rules of companies such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube has left Silicon Valley vulnerable to intensifying political crosscurrents," the Post later said, noting the ban on Trump. 

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"The answer, analysts said, may simply be that Trump’s posts for years challenged platform rules against hate speech and inciting violence. Today’s Taliban, by and large, does not," it added, while quoting analysts warning the radical group wasn't to be trusted.

Fox News' David Rutz and Brian Flood contributed to this report.