Arash Azizzada has spent much of the past week talking to people in Afghanistan and helping them evacuate as the Taliban took control of the country. The former photojournalist and co-founder of the advocacy group Afghans for a Better Tomorrow has also been ensuring vulnerable citizens erase online evidence that could put them at risk. “Just like us, [Afghans] have spent 20 years on the internet,” said Azizzada, who is part of the Afghan diaspora in the United States. “They may not always remember their digital trail.”..

As the Taliban seized control of major cities, people grew concerned that the group could use social media profiles and other information on the internet to identify citizens who previously worked for the Afghan security forces, civilian government, or foreign organizations. Many Afghans scrambled to delete their accounts or adjust their privacy settings, sometimes forced to choose between staying safe and maintaining important connections to contacts abroad. In response, LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter all said they had taken steps to help people in the country secure their data.

... Because of U.S. sanctions, Facebook and YouTube have both banned the Taliban from their platforms. Twitter and LinkedIn similarly prohibit “violent organizations” and “violent extremist groups.” Despite the rules, the Taliban is still using Western social media sites to its advantage. Over the last ten days, more than 100 official or pro-Taliban accounts have sprung on Twitter and Facebook, according to The New York Times, which also identified a number of official Taliban YouTube videos that were later removed. During the same time period, Zabihullah Mujahid, a spokesperson for the movement, gained almost 100,000 followers on Twitter (his account was launched in 2017).

In a statement, a spokesperson for LinkedIn said the company was “monitoring conversations about developments in Afghanistan and taking action on any content that doesn’t follow our professional community policies.” LinkedIn added that it has also temporarily limited the visibility of connections for users in the country. A spokesperson for Twitter said it would “continue to proactively enforce our rules and review content that may violate Twitter Rules, specifically policies against glorification of violence, platform manipulation, and spam.” Google and Facebook did not respond to requests for comment.

Nathaniel Gleicher, Facebook’s head of security policy, said on Twitter that the company had launched a tool for people in Afghanistan to quickly lock their profiles, as well as temporarily halted the ability to search friends lists of accounts in Afghanistan...