Why has Twitter banned Trump but not the Taliban?

The Taliban has been getting a fair bit of press of late. Something to do with a change of government in Afghanistan, apparently.

The Taliban is getting its message out on social media, too, giving live updates on its seizure of power. A man claiming to be an official representative has had an active account on Twitter since 2017 and has over 280,000 followers. He has had a lot to tweet about in recent days.

This might seem unusual, considering how censorious Twitter usually is. It has punished people for stepping out of line on numerous issues from transgenderism to Covid-19. Most infamously, it banned the sitting US president, Donald Trump, earlier this year. Even more extraordinarily, the ban largely related to Trump’s behaviour off the platform. Many months on, as the Taliban tweets freely about its progress, Trump is still banned.

Who’s worse: a bunch of murderous Islamists who bar women from education, chop off thieves’ hands and stone people to death, or the Bad Orange Man? For some on the extreme fringes of the liberal elite, it may be a tough choice. But for most of us, it’s pretty obvious that Trump is preferable to the Taliban.

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