Twitter has won the support of a big name backer against fast-growing rival Threads – but it’s the Taliban.
A leader of the hardline Islamist group, which seized power in Afghanistan in summer 2021, said Elon Musk‘s platform was a tolerant place that allowed freedom of speech to thrive.
Anas Haqqani offered his endorsement in a tweet on Monday, as it emerged that Meta’s new Twitter-like platform had amassed more than 100 million users in less than a week.
Its popularity and brazen similarity to Twitter has irked Musk, who’s made his disdain for Mark Zuckerberg clear in several tweets since Threads launched and even threatened to sue.
But Haqqani, whose group has banned women from university education, public spaces, and most jobs, said Musk had nothing to worry about.
“Other platforms cannot replace it,” he said of Twitter, citing its commitment to “freedom of speech” and its “public nature and credibility”.
“Twitter doesn’t have an intolerant policy like Meta,” he added.
Sky News contacted Twitter for comment, but only received a customary poop emoji in return.
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The Taliban on Twitter
Haqqani, who defended the Taliban’s regressive position on women’s and girls’ rights in a Sky News interview last year, is one of numerous leaders from the regime with a Twitter account.
The Taliban had a presence on Twitter before Musk bought the company last October. The group is banned from rival platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok.
Earlier this year, it emerged Taliban figures had become verified on Twitter after signing up for the Twitter Blue subscription service, which grants users with a checkmark previously reserved for public figures like athletes, politicians, celebrities, and some journalists.
The Taliban’s ticks were removed after backlash.
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Threads’s fast start
Musk’s stance on verification and moderation are among the reasons some users have sought to leave Twitter.
But no rivals have threatened its position as the go-to social media platform for real-time text updates like Threads, which quickly dwarfed the user base of other Twitter-likes such as Bluesky and Mastodon and could soon catch up with Twitter’s estimated population of 360-400 million.
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Its aggressively-timed launch came just days after Musk announced temporary reading limits on Twitter, but with higher limits for those who paid for Twitter Blue.
Musk and Zuckerberg’s verbal sparring via their respective apps could end with the pair having an actual fight, with both billionaires having suggested they want a cage match.