Taliban buy blue ticks as they praise Elon Musk for 'making Twitter great again'
At least two full-blown Taliban officials and four prominent supporters in Afghanistan are currently using the paid-for checkmarks, while high-profile supporters are also forking out
Taliban officials have started buying blue ticks on Twitter as they praise CEO Elon Musk for making the site "great again".
Several officials are using the paid-for verification feature to have the formerly-coveted blue ticks on their accounts.
Before Musk made a change where the ticks can now be bought, they used to denote "active, notable, and authentic accounts of public interest".
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The BBC reported that at least two full-blown Taliban officials and four prominent supporters in Afghanistan are currently using the checkmarks.
The head of the Taliban's department for "access to information" Hedayatullah Hedayat has now got a blue tick on Twitter. It was removed last month, but has now returned.
Abdul Haq Hammad, head of the media watchdog at the Afghan Ministry of Information and Culture, also has one. Both men have well over 150,000 followers and regularly post updates.
Twitter warns you that the profiles might contain “potentially sensitive content”, but it is still easy to view them.
Muhammad Jalal, who previously identified as a Taliban official, said yesterday (Monday, January 16) that Musk was "making Twitter great again".
His comments appear to be a reference to Donald Trump's 'Make America Great Again' campaign slogan.
In February 2020, Trump signed a deal with the now de-facto Afghan leaders, committed to the withdrawal of US and allied troops from Afghanistan by May 2021.
Trump was suspended from the site after his supporters violently raided the US Capitol, and in October 2021 he said: "We live in a world where the Taliban has a huge presence on Twitter, yet your favorite American President has been silenced.
"This is unacceptable."
After the Taliban violently seized power in Afghanistan, in August 2021, it commandeered verified accounts which were operated by the overthrown Afghanistan government.
Days later, a spokesperson of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, the Taliban’s self-proclaimed state, used Twitter to announce the takeover.
"With the help of God, and the support of the nation, we are now in control of all parts of the country. We would like to congratulate our nation on this big achievement,” they said.
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