Former President Donald Trump criticized Twitter for allowing the Taliban to use the social networking platform to provide updates on their conquest of Afghanistan, as he defends his decision to ban it from the site.
Trump criticized Twitter for allowing Taliban but banning him as president
“It’s a shame when you think you have murderers and robbers and dictators and horrible – some dictators and horrible countries, and everybody’s on the side but the president of the United States, who had hundreds of millions of people, by the way, he takes off,” Trump told Newsmax on Wednesday in a phone interview.
While Trump has remained banned from the platform since the Jan. 6 Capitol Hill riots, Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid was allowed to post updates freely on the platform .
Mujahid’s unverified account, which was used to provide updates on the Taliban’s capture of Afghan cities as they aggressively seized control of the country in days , has amassed more than 326,000 followers.
Another Taliban spokesman, Qari Yousaf Ahmadi , has more than 66,000 followers.
Twitter issued a general statement to questions about the radical Islamic militant group’s presence on the platform, but the company did not respond directly to the former president’s criticism.
“The situation in Afghanistan is evolving rapidly,” the statement read. “We are also witnessing people in the country using Twitter to seek help and assistance. Twitter’s top priority is keeping people safe and we remain vigilant.
“We will continue to proactively enforce our rules and review content that may violate the Twitter Rules , specifically policies against glorification of violence , manipulation of the platform and spam.”
By contrast, Twitter announced it was banning Trump on Jan.
8, when he was still president and his account had more than 80 million followers.
