Kabul: The Taliban government of Afghanistan on Thursday ordered a ban on the video-sharing app TikTok and survival-shooter PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds (PUBG) game. The Taliban insisted that they were misleading the youth of Afghanistan. Phone apps are popular among Afghans, leaving them with few outlets for entertainment as the hardline Taliban banned music, movies, and television serials after returning to power last year.
Instructions were also given regarding TV channels
The apps “misguided the younger generation”, the cabinet said in a statement, ordering the telecom ministry to shut them down. The ministry was also directed to restrain TV channels from showing “immoral content”, although little beyond news and religious content is being broadcast on the channels.
The Taliban, after coming to power in August, claimed that it would implement a softer version of Islamic rule than the previous regime (1996 to 2001). However, gradually the Taliban began to impose restrictions on social life, especially on women. Most secondary schools for girls remain closed, and women have been barred from many government jobs and from traveling abroad. Women are also not given the freedom to travel between Afghan cities unless they are accompanied by an adult male relative.
9 million people have access to the Internet
According to data published in January by DataReportal, an independent data collector, just over 9 million people across Afghanistan have access to the internet while the country’s population is 38 million. There are about 4 million social media users, with Facebook being the most popular.
The previous government of Afghanistan’s deposed President Ashraf Ghani also tried to ban PUBG. Chinese-owned TikTok has been blocked twice in the past in neighboring Pakistan for alleged “obscene” content. During the previous regime, the Taliban’s religious police banned recreational activities such as kite flying and pigeon racing.
