[Darkpedia] Taliban takes over Afghanistan, Darkweb on its uproar

Darkpedia
S2W BLOG
Published in
3 min readAug 25, 2021

Author: Jaehak Oh, Sunhyung Shim | S2W DIA

Photo by IsaaK Alexandre KaRslian on Unsplash

Darkpedia

Delivers information of major events happening on worldwide.
Primarily focus on ‘how’ the event have impacted Darkweb users and trends.

Background

  • Joe Biden (president of the United States of America) has announced the critical message to the world in April 2021, that the American army will be departing Afghanistan by August 31st, 2021.
  • Since the announcement, Taliban forces have been on their rapid move to take over major Afghanistan cities; ended up successfully conquering the presidential palace at Kabul. (Afghanistan capital)
  • As Taliban forces continue to take over Afghanistan cities, Darkweb users have been uploading various contents on Darkweb in order to share the current situation in Afghanistan.

→ S2W presents the fluctuation of Darkweb users’ trends and contents that are being distributed at Darkweb.

Afghanistan Darkweb trend has shown big changes after the Taliban’s invasion

→ Post Joe Biden’s withdrawal announcement, Afghanistan’s Darkweb users and Taliban-related content have been on the increasing board.

Main Taliban-related contents on Darkwebn

→ Images of Taliban forces are easily found on Darkweb forums.

Tablian forces with their weapon storage
Picture of Taliban forces at presidential palace in Kabul // Video of Taliban forces on the gym at American base

Taliban-related content on popular Darkweb forum

→ Recently, images of Taliban soldiers were leaked on darkweb forum by an anonymous author.
The author has stated that the file contains personal information and photos of people who used to be Afghanistan soldiers or citizens, but now have turned in to Taliban forces.

→ It is assumed that Taliban forces took photos of the people with their personal information on hand, to prevent the betrayal.

Post on Darkweb forum by an anonymous author
Sample of photos and personal information

Voice of Darkweb users

→ Generally, Darkweb users are critical of how the Afghanistan government handled the overall situation of the Taliban’s invasion.

Post related to Afghanistan president’s flee

→ Also, the media and Afghanistan citizens reported the video and status to major Darkweb forums, and they expressed concerns about the future political situation.

Current situation in Kabul airport; civilians waiting to depart from Kabul
Video leaked on Darkweb, showing the current situation at Kabul airport
A few brave civilians confronting Taliban forces
Message from Afghanistan civilian to an anonymous Darkweb user

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