For Big Tech companies, like the leftists that run them, double standards are their only consistent standards. This reality was brought into sharp focus once again with the fall of Afghanistan to the Taliban, that terror-disseminating and terrorist-protecting gang of jihadi thugs.

Using social media to coordinate over the weeks as U.S. forces followed Joe Biden’s directive to withdraw from the war-torn country, Taliban forces quickly — indeed, with near-lightning speed — took over Afghanistan. On Sunday, as the Taliban took Kabul, spokesman Zabihullah Majuhid sent out social media messages via his Twitter account to the city’s residents informing them that “the situation in Kabul is under control.” Using both Twitter and Facebook-owned WhatsApp, Majuhid has been free to send messages to his 280,000 followers.

To put things in perspective, one of the world’s most dangerous terrorist organizations — a two-decade enemy of the U.S. — has been allowed unhindered access to Big Tech’s social media platforms to disseminate its hateful messaging, all while these same social media giants suppress certain American speech in the name of preventing “misinformation” and “hate speech.”

Twitter and Facebook permanently banned Donald Trump from their platforms following the January 6 Capitol riot, dubiously parroting the Democrat charge that he “incited a violent insurrection.” And they routinely redline and shadow-ban the speech of conservatives who are guilty of “wrongthink.” Yet these companies have no problem allowing actual terrorists to use their platforms unimpeded as they coordinate the deadly overthrow of Afghanistan. Whatever happened to protecting democracy?

Even a French politician can see the blatant hypocrisy. Jerome Riviere observed, “Freedom and democracy are not doing well when Twitter continues to ban Trump’s account but relays the Taliban spokesperson’s without any second thoughts.”

This is what happens when individuals, organizations, or businesses abandon the principle of free speech and take upon themselves the role of speech police. Invariably, they get it wrong, often egregiously so. Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg and Twitter’s Jack Dorsey would be ashamed if they weren’t so shameless.