Afghanistan’s digital landscape has shifted dramatically in recent weeks, as the Taliban government imposed sweeping restrictions on internet access and social media platforms. According to a statement released by United Nations experts on October 10, 2025, these actions represent a clear violation of Afghans’ fundamental rights and freedom of expression. The move has drawn comparisons to China’s “Great Firewall,” raising concerns about the future of open communication and information flow in the country.
The trouble began on September 29, when Afghanistan was plunged into a 48-hour nationwide blackout of both internet and phone communications. As reported by AFP and Firstpost, this blackout coincided with a morality drive led by Taliban leader Hibatullah Akhundzada, who had previously ordered fibre-optic services to be cut in several provinces. Authorities confirmed the fibre-optic ban, but provided no comment on the sudden, countrywide outage that left millions disconnected from the outside world.
Connectivity was largely restored by October 1, but Afghans soon discovered that access to several popular social media platforms—including Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat—remained severely restricted. According to the monitoring group Netblocks, these platforms were down across multiple providers in Afghanistan as of early October. The United Nations’ special rapporteur on human rights in Afghanistan, Richard Bennett, and other UN experts quickly condemned the move, describing it as part of a “wider and deliberate strategy to control public discourse and regulate societal conduct.”
In their joint statement, the UN experts emphasized that the Taliban’s restrictions “severely disrupt freedom of expression and the right to information, isolating the people of Afghanistan from the international community and their families abroad.” This isolation has particularly dire consequences for women and girls, who have come to rely on digital spaces for education, work, and maintaining social connections. The UN team warned that continued restrictions could exacerbate the mental health crisis already affecting Afghan women and girls, urging the Taliban to “restore full internet access for all citizens immediately and to refrain from imposing further restrictions that violate the civil, political, economic, social, and cultural rights of the Afghan people.”
The Taliban government, for its part, has remained silent on the matter. As of October 10 and 11, there had been no official comment on the ongoing restrictions or the motivations behind them. However, experts and observers have drawn parallels between the Taliban’s actions and the internet control strategies employed by other countries in the region—most notably China.
China’s so-called “Great Firewall” is perhaps the world’s most famous example of state-run digital censorship. As explained by Shahzeb Mahmood, head of research at Tech Global Institute, the firewall’s objective is “to preserve political control, social stability, informational control, [and] ideological conformity.” Since the late 1990s, Beijing has built a complex architecture to block access to foreign news outlets, Western social media, and politically sensitive content. While some Chinese citizens—especially urban, college-educated youth—can bypass these controls using VPNs or overseas networks, most cannot. Domestic tech giants like WeChat and Baidu have flourished in this environment, filling the void left by banned Western platforms.
“The Great Firewall [has] acted like an incubator for Chinese tech platforms,” Kendra Schaefer, a tech partner at consultancy Trivium China, told AFP. Even if China were to lift its firewall tomorrow, she argues, “you’re not going to get an exodus of Chinese people onto Facebook—they have better platforms.” In China, the firewall is no secret, and there has been little significant pushback against its existence.
Afghanistan’s recent crackdown on digital freedom appears to draw directly from this playbook, though with far less technical sophistication. Mahmood noted that the Taliban’s methods are “not as sophisticated as other governments,” and that their motivations may include preventing the spread of pornography, curbing education for women, and limiting access to Western social media content. The timing of the internet and phone shutdown—coming just weeks after the government began cutting high-speed connections in some provinces to prevent “immorality”—suggests a deliberate attempt to reshape Afghan society by controlling what information people can access and share.
Other Asian countries, such as Vietnam, Myanmar, Pakistan, and India, also police their internet to varying degrees. However, the scope and effectiveness of these controls differ widely, with China’s system remaining the most comprehensive and technologically advanced. In Afghanistan, the restrictions have already had profound effects. Not only have Afghans been cut off from the global community, but many have also lost critical connections to family members abroad who provide vital support, including financial remittances.
The UN experts, who serve on a voluntary basis under the Human Rights Council in Geneva, issued a stark warning: “These new restrictions, although more filtered than blanket at this stage, can be understood as part of a wider and deliberate strategy to control public discourse and regulate societal conduct.” They stressed that such measures further isolate Afghans and deepen the country’s growing sense of alienation from the rest of the world.
While some Afghans may attempt to circumvent the new restrictions using VPNs or other workarounds, the reality is that most lack the technical means or resources to do so. For women and girls, the impact is especially acute. With educational opportunities already under threat and public spaces increasingly off-limits, the loss of digital access closes off one of the last remaining avenues for personal growth, connection, and hope.
As the world watches, the Taliban’s digital crackdown is being closely scrutinized for its broader implications. Will Afghanistan become another case study in the global trend toward internet censorship and state-controlled information? Or will international pressure and internal resistance force a reversal? For now, Afghans are left in the dark—both figuratively and, at times, literally—waiting to see what comes next.