The popular social media platform Facebook says the company helped evacuate 175 people from Afghanistan, including its staff who arrived in Mexico from Taliban-held territory.
British Broadcasting Corporation According to the BBC The Mexican government has confirmed that journalists, activists and their families arrived in Mexico earlier this week, including 75 children.
A Facebook spokesman said Facebook employees and close partners had left Afghanistan in the process of providing support from the company.
We supported the efforts to evacuate a group of critically endangered journalists and their families from Afghanistan. The spokesman added that he thanked the Mexican government and the United Arab Emirates for allowing the plane to land early.
According to reports, this is the fourth flight after the Taliban’s occupation of Afghanistan that has been allowed to come to Mexico on humanitarian grounds.
Earlier last week, media workers from major US newspapers arrived in Mexico from Afghanistan on three flights. The Mexican government says the new group includes social media workers, activists, independent journalists and their families.
Facebook has stepped up its efforts to curb the Taliban’s growing content on social media platforms and added an additional privacy feature for users in Afghanistan.
The latest move includes a one-click option for the people of Afghanistan that allows them to lock their accounts.
Privacy settings will prevent other users who are not their Facebook friends from downloading or sharing their profile photos or viewing posts on their timeline.
Additional tools include a permanent ban on Facebook platforms with pro-Taliban content because the US multinational technology company, based in Menlo Park, California, considers the Taliban a terrorist organization.
To this end, Facebook has hired a team of Afghan experts who speak the local languages ’Dari’ and ‘Pashto’ and are familiar with local events so that the Taliban can use social media platforms. Content linked to can be monitored and removed.