Facebook Censors 'Everybody Draw Mohammad Day' Page, Pakistan Lifts Ban

[onehandle]

Source: AP, Huffington Post

LAHORE, Pakistan — Pakistan lifted a ban on Facebook on Monday after officials from the social networking site apologized for a page deemed offensive to Muslims and removed its contents, a top information technology official said.

The move came almost two weeks after Pakistan imposed the ban amid anger over a page that encouraged users to post images of Islam's Prophet Muhammad. Many Muslims regard depictions of the prophet, even favorable ones, as blasphemous.

"In response to our protest, Facebook has tendered their apology and informed us that all the sacrilegious material has been removed from the URL," said Najibullah Malik, secretary of Pakistan's information technology ministry, referring to the technical term for a Web page.

Facebook assured the Pakistani government that "nothing of this sort will happen in the future," Malik said.

Read more: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/05/31/facebook-censors-everybod_n_595225.html

[MidwestTransplant]

1. But the kill Obama fan page isn't offensive.

[marshall]

4. No, but death threats and country wide boycotts are

No fatwas yet from the anti-anti-Obama crowd.

[msongs]

2. I object to pictures of cats on facebook, will Facebook cave to my demands? nt

[CLANG]

10. Certainly you see the difference

[ZombieHorde]

3. Disappointing. Draw Muhammad (pbuh) day should become an unofficial world holiday. nt

[DatManFromNawlins]

5. Yet the Everybody Draw the Holocaust Day page...

... complete with all the usual Muslim kook denials, is still going strong. Way to go, Facebook!

[totodeinhere]

6. Why should their values be imposed on me? I do not consider images of Muhammad offensive,

and as far as I'm concerned, I should be able to draw and display such images if I want to. IMO, those who consider such images offensive are victims of religious superstition. If others don't like it, they don't have to look at the images.

[MilesColtrane]

7. Terms of Service

I encourage you to start your own social networking web site.

[totodeinhere]

9. How is posting an image of Muhammad violating the Facebook TOS?

I just don't see it. Just because some religious extremists consider images of Muhammad offensive doesn't make it so in my mind, and why should Facebook bow the wishes of narrow minded relics of the 12th century?

I wonder if they would delete my page if I posted an offensive image of Jesus? I doubt it.

[MilesColtrane]

11. I'm not going to look it up, but I'm sure the Facebook TOS says that they can...

delete any post by you for any reason the deem fit.

I didn't make an argument that Facebook should bow to the wishes of Islamic fundamentalists.

I can only guess that their reason is that having a fatwa put on FB management and employees is bad for their bottom line.

I don't know if they'd delete other unfavorable images of religious icons, as I canceled my account last year, and never really used the site for much of anything anyway.

[Skip Intro]

12. +1000

[Lucian]

16. Agreed. +1

:thumbsup:

[Codeine]

8. Fundamentalism wins again.

Disappointing.

[Odin2005]

13. Religious Insanity: 45,961 Freedom of Speech: 0

:puke:

[cosmicone]

14. Capitulating to terrorist Pakistanis again...

I say every facebook user start a "draw Mohammad" page. Let's see how many accounts facebook will cancel.

[MinM]

17. We should unleash our Drones...

Oh wait... :sarcasm:

[Hav]

15. .

I can understand the reason for this event on Facebook, but I find it hard to see the value in deliberately trying to offend a whole religion.
Don't Christians have similar feelings about drawings of God? I'm not religious but I would respect such a wish of a Christian as well.
We all know how important religion is for some people. I just don't see any value in pushing someone's buttons like that.

[CynicalObserver]

19. actually, the button which has been pushed is the button of the

members of the western world who were stunned/appalled/dismayed to see the reaction of so many governments and papers to the original danish cartoons, which seems to have woken people up to the fact that islam doesn't feel freedom of expression is a good thing for ANYONE, ANYWHERE to have. Did you forget about this?

[Chan790]

18. Still nothing stopping you from drawing a picture...

of Mohammad on your own of your own free volition and posting it to Facebook or even DU. Only the elimination of a Facebook group to organize such an exercise.

That doesn't mean it can't happen either, there is nothing stopping me or you or anybody from organizing such an effort (to post pictures of Mohammad to Facebook) from outside Facebook...say here...in this subthread on a website unaffiliated with Facebook. Geez, sometimes I think I am the only here who looks for and thinks up technicalities to subvert or outdistance the limits of adversarial authority.