By Elaha Rasa
An analysis of women’s social media accounts on X, formerly Twitter, has revealed some accounts purporting to be women may be fake and used as a Taliban propaganda tool.
The accounts under scrutiny were launched after the Taliban took power in Afghanistan in 2021 with women’s names as the handle, and quickly gained thousands of followers.
The Taliban is known for its hardline views on women, especially in public spaces. It has systematically enforced policies that ensure women’s voices are silenced and their presence, if necessary, is mostly hidden. But the group appears to be trying to amplify female voices online that glorify the Taliban’s actions.
Monitoring of these “female” accounts has found that at least 25 accounts with names and photos of women on the X platform created after August 15, 2021, are likely fake.
The profile images are generally veiled women in a full black covering or a picture of the Qur’an, a dove, the sun, or the moon. The accounts mostly follow each other and publish similar information in Pashto, Dari, and English daily, and retweet or repost regularly from Taliban-related accounts. Each of these accounts has thousands of followers.
The user account Rana Zalanda has over 15 thousand followers, Safia Alakozay has almost 15 thousand followers, Madina Afghan has over thirteen thousand, and Saeeda Sadat and Hadia Panjshiri each have thousands of followers.
The content published on these user accounts is almost uniform and often consists of reposts from the Taliban’s official media accounts or well-known Taliban figures.
The Taliban has a practice of threatening and even detaining anyone who voices disagreement with their policies. It has also targeted women sharing apolitical content on social media platforms. And it generally has little tolerance for women’s presence in the media.
In November 2021, it issued an eight-article directive stating that women cannot participate in plays and television series. On news channels, female presenters are required to wear masks while hosting programs. In some provinces, the presence of women in any state-owned media has been banned by local Taliban authorities.
However, these women’s accounts on X are being amplified by the Taliban. The posts are generally glorifying the Taliban or ridiculing those who oppose the group.
Safia Alakozay, who joined X in January 2022, reacted to Taliban’s widespread arrests of women on the pretext of “improper hijab” by sharing a photo of protesting girls burning images of Taliban leaders. She commented: “These are women who have been educated by Sima Samar, Fawzia Koofi, Shukria Barakzai, and Sahra Karimi, and have protested to overthrow the system and have burned the images of the leaders, now they have been arrested by the Islamic Emirate.”
Sediqa Panjshiri reposted this, with the comment: “These women and girls, who are undermining the security and peace of Afghan society by creating promotional materials for the media in the alleys and underground of Kabul at the behest of foreigners, have been arrested.”
Madina Panjshiri shared a photo of a Taliban officer named Esmatullah, known as Zarqawi, whose two hands seem to have been severed and it appears he has also lost his eyes. Her post praised him, saying: “He has lost his two hands and two eyes for the sake of this Islamic system.”
Sediqa Panjshiri shared a report of an educational class for female students with the presence of female teachers and foreign forces, saying: “For twenty years, our sisters were trapped in ignorance, which they called progress, education, and upbringing. The West, over the past twenty years, has been able to indoctrinate the younger generation against us through its forces.”
Another user with the handle Khadija Lema shared a video of a public execution by hanging carried out by the Taliban saying: “For those of you who think this execution is unlawful or barbaric, know that this law prevents the victimization of many children in such crimes.”
Roqia Panjshiri shared an image of Abuzar Ghafari’s religious education center for girls saying: “Girls are educated there who will raise future Salahuddin.” Salahuddin is a reference that means “righteousness” in regards to Islam.
Why would the Taliban resort to this method?
Independent journalist Mukhtar Wafayi said the Taliban and its supporters create female-appearing accounts as a promotional tool and provide “misleading” and targeted information on security and political matters.
“These fake accounts on X, Telegram, and YouTube are active and have numerous followers, and some of these accounts have even acquired blue ticks. These accounts are regularly updated with new information to serve the goals of the Taliban,” he said.
He said the Taliban understand using women’s names and photos to achieve its goals is more effective.
“On Meta platforms, the possibility of creating fake pages is rare because Meta has imposed measures against fake accounts and restrictions on the Taliban and other insurgent groups. If keywords or images related to the Taliban are used, these accounts are immediately shut down,” he said.
But that’s not the case on X.
“X policies are not strict on extremism, terrorism, and violence, and its algorithms do not identify videos of human slaughtering, explosions, and scenes of violence and cruelty – they can be published without any censorship.”
Meta has deleted the accounts of the Bakhtar News Agency and the National Radio and Television of Afghanistan under Taliban control from Facebook and Instagram, and if users use images and words related to the Taliban, these accounts are closed down by the platform.
Meanwhile, a campaign to have the Taliban banned on X has sprung up with the hashtag #BanTaliban, but the platform has not yet shown any response in this regard.
Journalist and media activist Mirwais Bizhan was not surprised by the use of fake female voices on X, saying the Taliban “spare no trick” to cover up its brutality and unpopularity.
“The Taliban are accused of violating human rights, committing war crimes, and ruthlessly massacring innocent people and minorities in many cities of Afghanistan. After gaining political power in Afghanistan, this group systematically tries to deceive the public and cover up their crimes,” he said.
“The mission of these fake pages is to appear to highlight the Taliban’s performance and praise it.”
Mr Bizhan said scientific methods can help reveal the gender of the real users behind the female X handles.
“With the use of forensic science and sociology, the gender of the article’s author can be determined,” he said.
“This writing is done in a masculine style.”
He said a side effect of these fake accounts also contributes to reducing public trust in the media.
The head of the Afghan women’s rights group Purple Saturdays, Maryam Maroof Arwin, said that the international community’s lack of recognition of the Taliban as a legitimate government has pushed the group to launching the fake female accounts.
“The Taliban have used women’s clothes in suicide explosions over the past twenty years, and now they allow themselves to use women’s names on social media. They have repeatedly used these accounts to make obscene and inappropriate comments in the comments sections for protesting women, and have even issued threats,” she said.
Head of the Spontaneous protest movement Laila Basim said the aim of the Taliban is to clearly whitewash the Taliban’s misogynist policies.
She said the female-named handles supporting the Taliban attract a lot more attention than male-named handles and any messages posted on these accounts are transmitted more quickly.
“When women on X support the Taliban’s ideology, dozens of other accounts comment under that post that women in Afghanistan support the Taliban and that protesting women are only a small group funded by Westerners that do not represent the demands of women in Afghanistan,” she said.
Former diplomat Shukria Barakzai said she had an encounter during a public forum discussion on X where she came across the user Safia Alkozay.
Safia Alkozay’s account was created January 2022 and is verified.
“I found her posts praising the Taliban, their leaders, and commanders, while conspicuously devoid of any positive mention of women, instead filled with derogatory remarks,” Mrs Barakzai said.
She attempted to engage Safia Alkozay herself, but received no response.
“So I asked the moderator to grant Safia Alkozay time to briefly speak, hoping to find out her identity. Sadly, the user, ostensibly under a female name, remained silent.
“This helped me conclude it’s a fake account and the [user] had no genuine intention to express opinions or engage in discussion.”
Mrs Barakzai said the Taliban was known to have fake accounts even during its twenty years fighting the US-led foreign armies and the Afghan National Security Forces of the previous governments.
She condemned the use of women’s names on these accounts as deceptive and manipulative.
“It creates a false impression for individuals who are unaware of the current situation in Afghanistan and portrays the group as having popular support from women,” she said.
“The Taliban cannot use their own names and photos to express their views and earn support for themselves. So this organized group works systematically through their operatives to use fake accounts and to silence thousands of dissenting voices.”
