'We are blind': The impact of Taliban telecoms blackout

Afghanistan's Taliban authorities have cut telecommunications nationwide, paralysing services crucial to women's education, information access and entertainment.

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The blackout, which the Taliban government says will be in place "until further notice", also threatens to cripple the country's already fragile economy. Here are some of the key areas affected by the shutdown:

Social media

At the beginning of 2025, 13.2 million people had access to the Internet in Afghanistan -- around 30.5 percent of the population, according to the specialist website DataReportal, with around 4.05 million social media users.

But the blackout has caused connectivity to drop to less than one percent of normal levels, according to Netblocks, a cyber-security and Internet governance watchdog.

Taliban officials have justified the measure as a fight against "vice" and "moral corruption".

With access to social media cut, Afghans are deprived of their main source of information, as well as entertainment.

"Conservative regimes see the Internet as a means of... liberating women, which in their books is a really bad thing. But then also they see it as people accessing all sorts of different information... which they would rather people not see," digital rights activist Usama Khilji told AFP.

Women's education