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Lundi, 19 Décembre 2011 21:57

Pakistan's Taliban Launches Jihad Against Sexting

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Pakistan's Taliban Launches Jihad Against Sexting

Do not even think about texting an adorable photo of your baby to your grandmother if you live in the tribal regions of Pakistan. The Taliban might attack you for it — and they’re definitely going to smash your cell phone. It’s all sexting to them.

The conspiratorial religious fanatics are on a new jihad against the always-on future. And if you’ve ever shared an NSFW pic through your phone, you know why. Leaflets are turning up in the tribal areas calling camera phones “the source of promoting obscenity and vulgarity,” reports Pakistan’s The News.

Over 300 cellphones and a dozen computers have been seized and burned so far. The Taliban have reportedly shut down sales of cameraphones and asked tribesmen to cooperate against the “misuse” of those they’ve yet to confiscate.

“The Taliban said they had already banned watching movies and listening to music,” The News reports. “Some of the people, they claimed, were still using their computers for watching movies and music and they had to initiate action against them.” The audacity!

It wasn’t long ago that the Taliban had a different beef with cellphones: They were essentially electronic homing devices for the armed drones overhead. Trackers placed in SIM cards used in militants’ cellphones told the drones who to kill, Taliban propaganda used to argue. Now the anti-cellphone campaign is a mechanism for social control.

But the Pakistani Taliban are out of step with recent militant advances in communication. Their Afghan counterparts are tweeting frenetically, as are their allies in Somalia’s Shabab. The Afghan Taliban even texts their death threats these days.

The Taliban have run effective terror campaigns against the Pakistani people before. But maybe the anti-cellphone drive could turn into a donnybrook. In Iraq, al-Qaida turned popular support into popular disgust by mutilating Sunnis for the crime of smoking. And you know how the kids love to sext these days.

Photo: Flickr/Simon Davidson

Pakistan's Taliban Launches Jihad Against SextingSpencer Ackerman is Danger Room's senior reporter, based out of Washington, D.C., covering weapons of doom and the strategies they're used to implement.
Follow @attackerman and @dangerroom on Twitter.

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