Social Media's Role on Dealing with the Taliban

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#Talibanned:

Last weekend the Taliban seized full control of Afghanistan—effectively ending the United States’ 20-year “war on terror”. For those interested in a history refresher, the Council of Foreign Relations put together an informational and consolidated timeline of the war over the past 20 years.

While there were many ex-virologist turned foreign policy experts on Twitter this week, this is not a discussion on the politics of this regime-change; but rather a discussion on how our social media companies are dealing with the Taliban and what their responsibility should be on allowing them to use their platforms and spread their message. And what better way to kick off a discussion than with a Twitter poll. The results below were a bit surprising as I thought more people would be in the ban camp.

When the Taliban governed Afghanistan from 1996 to 2001, there was no Facebook, no Twitter, no MySpace, no Youtube, and no iPhones. According to the World Bank, only 0.005% of the country was using the internet during that time. Flash forward 20 years and you can see how Internet adoption in Afghanistan has been gaining traction—which also means more access to pictures, videos, news, and social media.

Now that social media is front and center in everyone’s lives we are more exposed to international affairs than ever before. Just as the Taliban and Al Qaeda are radical jihadist groups focused on ridding the world from the threat, as they perceive it, that Western culture poses to Islam, many Americans feel the same about these organizations since the attacks on 9/11.

Hence the current policies of social media companies and how they are viewing the resurgence of the Taliban in this ever-evolving and highly digital world.

According to AP: Facebook and YouTube consider the Taliban a terrorist organization and prohibit it from operating accounts. Twitter has not explicitly banned the group yet, though the company said Tuesday that it will continue to enforce its rules, in particular policies that bar “glorification of violence, platform manipulation, and spam.”

This essentially means that until the accounts violate Twitter’s rules—for instance, by inciting violence—they are allowed to operate.

While the Taliban is not on the U.S. list of foreign terrorist organizations, the U.S. has imposed sanctions on it. Facebook said Tuesday that the group is banned from its platform under its “dangerous organization” policies, which also bars “praise, support and representation” of the group and accounts run on its behalf. The company emphasized in a statement that it has a dedicated team of Afghanistan experts that are native speakers of Dari and Pashto, Afghanistan’s official languages, to help provide local context and to alert the company of emerging issues.

A Facebook spokesperson also said: “Regardless of who holds power, we will take the appropriate action against accounts and content that breaks our rules.”

Twitter’s response was mixed as they don’t have a blanket policy against the Taliban. In a recent statement, Twitter said: “The situation in Afghanistan is rapidly evolving. We’re also witnessing people in the country using Twitter to seek help and assistance. Twitter’s top priority is keeping people safe, and we remain vigilant. We are taking steps to safeguard the voices of those on our service who represent protected groups including humanitarian workers, journalists, news media organisations, human rights activists and others.”

We understand it is rapidly evolving, but how does letting Taliban officials use Twitter help these individuals who are trapped in Afghanistan?

Earlier this week, CNBC’s Andrew Ross Sorkin moderated a pretty heated debate between Kevin O’Leary and Jonathan Greenblatt, CEO of the Anti-Defamation League, to discuss social media’s role in dealing with the Taliban after their takeover of Afghanistan. They both bring up important points but it just seems difficult for anyone to side with the Taliban based on their checkered past. The Taliban have been condemned internationally for the harsh enforcement of their interpretation of Islamic Sharia law, which has resulted in the brutal treatment of many Afghans.

Regardless of which stance you take, it’s clear social media companies need to update their corporate policies to deal with situations like this. No more gray zones that are up for interpretation. Take a hard stance and be consistent.

I agree with Greenblatt. It defies logic why Twitter would allow an organization that suppresses the rights of women, assassinates journalists, and brutalizes ethnic and religious minorities to exploit these technologies for their own good.

If I were Jack, I would ban the Taliban officials and anyone glorifying them from using Twitter. Unfortunately, he has waited too long, and now it’s become a political issue.

Performance Update:

Now let’s see how the People’s Portfolio did this week…

The market cooled off a bit this week with an abundance of worrisome news and data. Renewed supply chain concerns from the spread of the delta variant along with the recent Fed commentary about tapering sooner than later caused weakness across the board. Minutes from the July Federal Open Markets Committee showed that most officials agreed they could start slowing the pace of bond purchases this year.

On the earnings front, Nvidia posted record quarterly revenue of $6.5 billion. As reported on by Roundhill: Gaming revenue soared 85% year-over-year to $3.1 billion, while data center revenue reached $2.4 billion—both record totals. As gaming continues to shine amidst a global chip shortage, Nvidia’s CFO noted on the conference call that “gaming demand is continuing to exceed supply as we expect channel levels to remain below target levels as we exit Q3.” Specifically, Founder and CEO Jensen Huang expects a supply-constrained environment for the vast majority of next year. Speaking on the metaverse, Huang is “fairly sure” that the “metaverse is going to be a new economy that is larger than our current economy.” The stock responded well to the quarter and finished the day after reporting higher by 4.0%.

In M&A news, Adobe announced it was entering into a definitive agreement to acquire Frame.io in a transaction valued at $1.275 bln.

On Friday, we voted NVIDIA to remain in the portfolio for another 10 weeks. NVIDIA is our largest winner of the year, currently sitting on a 51.73% gain over the past 30 weeks.

Adobe (ADBE) is on the chopping block next week for the 1st time. We’re currently holding onto a 14.13% gain over the past 9 weeks. Recall that we bought this stock right after they reported a nice earnings beat. It has been on a slow and steady grind higher since then and even started breaking out more this week after the Frame.io acquisition announcement.

Keep an eye out for the new Twitter poll every Friday. Follow along in real-time with nearly 300,000 others on Public.

Portfolio News Highlights:

The biggest stories affecting our portfolio this week:

• Is Nvidia Stock A Buy After Strong Earnings, Guidance? (IBD)

• Coinbase is spending half a billion dollars of its own money on cryptocurrency (Yahoo)

• Adobe to Buy Video-Production Platform Frame.io for About $1.3 Billion (Variety)

• Energy Bear ETFs Break Out After Sluggish Chinese Data (Investopedia)

• Is Penn Stock A Buy As It Opens Another Casino In Pennsylvania? (IBD)

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What Else We’re Reading:

Blogs/Articles:

1. Wall Street’s CFA Program Is a Colossal Waste of Time - Jared Dillian (Bloomberg)

2. The next big thing will start out looking like a toy - Chris Dixon (CDixon)

3. How Millennial Investors Lost Millions on Bill Ackman’s SPAC - Michelle Celarier (Institutional Investor)

4. The Traffic Light - Kyla Scanlon (Substack)

Books:

Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don't Know - Adam Grant

Need new reading material? Visit my Amazon page for my most purchased book recommendations.

Tweets of the Week: