The Taliban have banned the video-sharing application TikTok in Afghanistan, alleging it is leading Afghan youth astray. The popular mobile game PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds (PUBG) has also been banned.
Since returning to power in August last year, the Taliban have banned music, movies and TV soap operas.
The phone applications are popular among Afghans who have few entertainment options.
In a statement on Thursday, the cabinet claimed that the applications have “led the young generation astray”, adding that the Ministry of Telecoms has been ordered to shut them down, ANI news agency reported.
It also ordered the ministry to stop broadcasting “immoral material” on television channels, despite showing nothing but news and religious programs, the ANI report said.
Nearly all Afghans (94 percent) rated their lives bad enough to be considered suffering since the Taliban took over Afghanistan last year, according to the results of a Gallur poll in February. This was not only a record high for Afghanistan, but also the highest level of suffering Gallup has measured for any country since 2005.
Individuals are classified by Gallup as “prosperous,” “struggling,” or “suffering” based on how they rate their present and future lives on a scale of zero to ten.
Just over nine million people have access to the internet across Afghanistan, a country of about 38 million people, according to figures published in January by DataReportal, an independent data collector, AFP news agency reported.
There are approximately four million social media users, with Facebook being the most popular.