01 June,2011 07:46 AM IST | | Lindsay Pereira
Why is the Islamist militant group now on the world's favourite micro-blogging platform?
On October 4, 2010, best-selling author Malcolm Gladwell used The New Yorker magazine to explain at length why, despite news reports to the contrary, social media would not spark any revolution.
His essay came in the wake of protests against Moldova's Communist government a year before, organised via Twitter.
South Korean activists wear cigarette-shaped outfits during a campaign marking the World No Tobacco Day in Seoul yesterday
That same year, student protests in Tehran (brought about using the same platform) prompted Mark Pfeifle, national security advisor for President George W Bush, to nominate Twitter for the Nobel Peace Prize. Gladwell remained unimpressed.
While he did admit that social media helped give the powerless a voice, he pointed out that these platforms were 'built around weak ties' as they involved following, or being followed by, people users may never have met.
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His essay argued that while Twitter made it easier for people to express themselves, the adaptability that made it popular also made it harder for that expression to have any impact.
His comments, though lucid and extremely well-articulated, seem to have had no effect on a certain group of people known as the Taliban. They are, for better or worse, now active on Twitter.
A report in The Guardian first mentioned their presence on May 12 this year, pointing out that their Twitter feed using the handle @alemarahweb was 'pumping out' several messages a day to 993 followers.
Earlier this month though, they began interspersing tweets in Pashto with English.
At the time of this report being filed, the account, linked to the official website of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan had posted 1,291tweets to its 5,706 followers.
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It followed just four accounts, including the website Nunn.Asia and Islamic Chechen Internet agency Kavkaz Centre. As for its followers, these included journalists from the East and West, bloggers, a couple of entrepreneurs, the Pakistan Telecom company, and even a punk rock community.
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Tweets in English were restricted to reports of strikes against the West or 'US invaders' and links to news stories or video footage.
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On July 14, 2001, news agency Reuters filed a report stating that the Taliban had banned the use of the Internet in Afghanistan to stop access 'to vulgar, immoral and anti-Islamic material.' It appears to have changed its mind.
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Maybe it feels the need to control the dissemination of information. Maybe it simply wants to make its presence felt on a platform that clearly has a captive audience. Or maybe it believes in the possibility of inciting a revolution. Malcolm Gladwell will, no doubt, have the answers.
