Facebook banned in Pakistan

Facebook has been recently banned in Pakistan. Most of us would have heard of this piece of startling news; and many of us would have reacted differently. Some of us would have been taken aback while others would remain nonchalant about this as it doesn't affect us in any way. However, this prohibition could affect us in the future. Firstly, lets see the reason as to why this social network was censored in the first place

Facebook being a widely used network, connects people from around the world . Relationships are established here and information is obtained faster here due to the publicity. Groups and fanpages are created for members of facebook with common interests. Almost anything can be posted on Facebook.However, this could be dangerous when haters and extremists rear their ugly heads. To publicise their thoughts and views, they use Facebook as a platform to create derogatory groups or fanpages.

In this case, Muslims were the target, and the target group were the minority in Denmark. A fanpage called 'Draw Muhammed day' was created for those who are against the religion Islam. The creators of this highlighted the doings of Muslim bigots and terrorists. On top of that, they drew caricatures and cartoons disgracing prophet Muhammed. In my opinion, I think that this shows a very biased thinking as they judge the whole of Muslims by just looking at what certain extremists have done. According to me, those Islamic terrorrists were certainly psychologically affected by their parochial religious views, hence steering them towards violence and to take lives. Just because of what they did, the Danish majority did something similar.

To bully the Danish muslims, being the minority in the population,this insulting page was set up, even after fully knowing the turmoil it would cause. This caused an uproar amongst the Muslims there and later spread to other countries such as Pakistan and India. This leads to protests and violence as it aggravated the Muslims. However, this controversy was deepened when a Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten published this racist cartoons. There were riots in Muslim populated countries such as Iran, India, Pakistan. Other places such as Lebanon, Syria and Ghaza also had violent reactions such as setting fire to the Danish Embassies. This galvanised the Goverment of the affected countries to ban Facebook.

In Pakistan, besides Facebook, Twitter and Youtube was banned too. Why? Was it just because of that fanpage which was meant for the Danish muslims? If it was so, why wasn't action taken against those who were involved in that scam and instead a helpful social network was prohibited? This blasphemous page was also not taken down no matter the countless times it was reported. The reason for this is believed to be the works of Facebook creator Mark Zuckerbug who is a Jew. Just because of one page many people are affected and other religions are being pulled in too.

I also think that the legal action taken by Pakistan towards it's people is not right. Instead of depriving them of Facebook which could actually do good, they could actually come together to take actions against the bigots. The one who started this did it accidentally and did not mean to trigger it. Miss Molly Norris, an American cartoonist wanted freedom of speech and started ' Everybody draw Muhammed day' with no intentions of putting down Islam. However, the people responded differently and made the page show Islam in a negative light. Miss Norris apologised for what she had caused. In this case, maybe the upset Muslims could if not forget, at least forgive.

Hence,I think that Facebook should be used more carefully and those who use it should watch what they post. They should not slight others by their views. Another important thing people should do is to report any pages or groups they come across as insulting and disgraceful.


Yours truly
Pavitra S