KABUL: Access to several social media sites, including Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat, has been “intentionally restricted” in Afghanistan, an Internet watchdog said Wednesday, a week after a 48-hour telecommunications blackout in the country.
Social media sites have been intermittently accessible on smartphones in provinces across the country since Tuesday, AFP journalists reported, while Internet speed is significantly slower than normal.
“The restrictions are now confirmed on multiple providers, the pattern shows an intentional restriction,” said NetBlocks, a watchdog organization that monitors cybersecurity and Internet governance.
The disruption is “primarily impacting mobile with some fix-lines also affected.”
The Taliban government has not responded to requests for comment from AFP.
Confusion gripped Afghanistan last Monday when mobile phone service and the Internet went down without warning, freezing businesses and cutting people off from the rest of the world.
The massive blackout came weeks after the government began cutting high-speed Internet connections to some provinces to prevent “immorality,” on the orders of shadowy supreme leader Hibatullah Akhundzada.
At the time, Netblocks said the blackout “appears consistent with the intentional disconnection of service,” adding that connection slowed to around one percent of ordinary levels.
It is the first time since the Taliban government won their insurgency in 2021 and imposed a strict version of Islamic law that communications have been cut in the country.
The government has yet to comment on the blackout.
For Afghan girls and women in particular, the Internet is a lifeline in a country where they are banned from secondary schools, universities, gyms, parks and most work.
“I would feel really sad if they banned Instagram or other social media because it’s the only way I can connect with the world,” said 24-year-old Ghezal, who asked for only her first name to be used.
“These social media platforms are the main way I stay connected with my friends who live in other countries.”
At the beginning of 2025, 13.2 million people had access to the Internet in Afghanistan — around 30.5 percent of the population, according to the specialist website DataReportal.
Around 4.05 million people were using social media.
Afghan mobile access to Facebook, Instagram intentionally restricted: watchdog
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Afghan mobile access to Facebook, Instagram intentionally restricted: watchdog
- Netblocks said last week’s blackout “appears consistent with the intentional disconnection of service”
- Social media sites have been intermittently accessible on smartphones in provinces across the country since Tuesday, while Internet speed is significantly slower than normal
Disinformation the new enemy in disaster zones, says Red Cross
- “Harmful information and dehumanizing narratives” undermines humanitarian aid and putting lives of aid workers at risk
- Between 2020 and 2024, disasters affected nearly 700 million people, displaced over 105 million, and killed more than 270,000 — doubling the number in need of humanitarian aid
GENEVA: The rise of disinformation is undermining humanitarian aid and putting lives at risk, while disasters are affecting ever more people, the Red Cross warned Thursday.
“Between 2020 and 2024, disasters affected nearly 700 million people, caused more than 105 million displacements, and claimed over 270,000 lives,” the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies said.
The number of people needing humanitarian assistance more than doubled in the same timeframe, the IFRC said in its World Disasters Report 2026.
But the world’s largest humanitarian network said that “harmful information and dehumanizing narratives” were increasingly undermining trust, putting the lives of aid workers at risk.
“In polarized and politically-charged contexts, humanitarian principles such as neutrality and impartiality are increasingly misunderstood, misrepresented or deliberately attacked online,” it said.
The IFRC has more than 17 million volunteers across more than 191 countries.
“In every crisis I have witnessed, information is as essential as food, water and shelter,” said the Geneva-based federation’s secretary general Jagan Chapagain.
“But when information is false, misleading or deliberately manipulated, it can deepen fear, obstruct humanitarian access and cost lives.”
He said harmful information was not a new phenomenon, but it was now moving “with unprecedented speed and reach.”
Chapagain said digital platforms were proving “fertile ground for lies.”
The IFRC report said the challenge nowadays was no longer about the availability of information but its reliability, noting that the production and spread of disinformation was easily amplified by artificial intelligence.
- ‘Life and death’ -
The report cited numerous recent examples of harmful information hampering crisis response.
During the 2024 floods in Valencia, false narratives online accused the Spanish Red Cross of diverting aid to migrants, which in turn fueled “xenophobic attacks on volunteers,” the IFRC said.
In South Sudan, rumors that humanitarian agencies were distributing poisoned food “caused people to avoid life-saving aid” and led to threats against Red Cross staff.
In Lebanon, false claims that volunteers were spreading Covid-19, favoring certain groups with aid and providing unsafe cholera vaccines eroded trust and endangered vulnerable communities, the IFRC said.
And in Bangladesh, during political unrest, volunteers faced “widespread accusations of inaction and political alignment,” leading to harassment and reputational damage, it added.
Similar events were registered by the IFRC in Sudan, Myanmar, Peru, the United States, New Zealand, Canada, Kenya and Bulgaria.
The report underlined that around 94 percent of disasters were handled by national authorities and local communities, without international interventions.
“However, while volunteers, local leaders and community media are often the most trusted messengers, they operate in increasingly hostile and polarized information environments,” the IFRC said.
The federation called on governments, tech firms, humanitarian agencies and local actors to recognize that reliable information “is a matter of life and death.”
“Without trust, people are less likely to prepare, seek help or follow life-saving guidance; with it, communities act together, absorb shocks and recover more effectively,” said Chapagain.
The organization urged technology platforms to prioritize authoritative information from trusted sources in crisis contexts, and transparently moderate harmful content.
And it said humanitarian agencies needed to make preparing to deal with disinformation “a core function” of their operations, with trained teams and analytics.
