In four years, the Taliban have annihilated Afghanistan’s independent media sector and supplanted it with their own propaganda empire and sophisticated digital bots that flood social media with pro-Taliban content.

CPJ interviewed 10 Afghan journalists, inside and outside the country, who said that  independent media, which used to reach millions of people, have largely been banned,suspended, or shuttered while key outlets have been taken over by the Taliban. None would publish their names, citing fear of reprisals.

The Taliban now run about 15 major television and radio stations, newspapers, and digital platforms, including on YouTube, X, and Telegram — tightly aligned with their radical Islamist ideology.

“The ruling authority enforces a monolithic media policy, rejecting any news, narrative, or voice that deviates from what they deem the truth. Even personal opinions expressed on platforms like Facebook are treated as propaganda and punishedaccordingly,” Ahmad Quraishi, director of the exiled Afghanistan Journalists Center, told CPJ.

Exiled journalists offer one of the last remaining sources of independent information broadcast into Afghanistan. But even they face safety concerns and hardships, as well as job losses and potential forced return due to the U.S. funding cuts to the Congress-funded Voice of America and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) outlets.

Turning fearful journalists into spies

As Afghanistan marks the fourth anniversary of the Taliban’s August 15, 2021, takeover, most journalists who spoke with CPJ said they were fearful, and either jobless or heavily censored. Several described the relentless surveillance, control, andintimidation as living under a “media police state.”

“Taliban intelligence agents have launched a policing system where every journalist is expected to spy on others,” a media executive who led a TV station in eastern Afghanistan told CPJ.

“They demand complete personal information on all staff: names, fathers’ names, addresses, phone numbers, emails, WhatsApp numbers … We must report everything.”

Intelligence agents monitor and detain reporters over their social media content, while the morality police

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