By Cara Brooke Schultz
Social media is popular in
Pakistan with about 25 million people regular Internet users, however those 25
million people will need to live without Facebook and other social networking
sites for an indefinite amount of time.
According to an article on
CNN.com, “Pakistan is blocking access to Facebook in response to an online group
calling on people to draw the Prophet Mohammed.” The telecommunication authority in Pakistan said the site has been
blocked for an indefinite amount of time. The group could be considered offensive to devout Muslims—they
consider it disrespectful to depict Mohammed.
Originally the creator of
the Facebook group established the group as a means of protest. She was quoted in the CNN.com article as saying, “This is something I have felt strongly about for a long time: bullying
by certain Muslim groups will not be tolerated in a free country.”
Facebook responded by saying
that although the group may be considered objectionable to some people it does
not violate Facebook policies.
Currently Facebook is looking into the situation.
From a marketing standpoint,
how do you think Facebook should deal with the current situation and any future
situations that may arise? Share
your thoughts!
pakistan done the great job i love this step that is taken by the PTA.
Posted by: Muslim Social Networks | June 03, 2010 at 03:15 PM
With a user base of 400 mil, a loss of 25mil users could cause facebook to lose a decent chunk of revenue. However, facebook should not and probably will not cave to this hostage move. They should realize that if they give in to Pakistan and censor this group, you will see more groups/countries protesting against certain content. This would inevitably drive facebook to lose a lot of additional users/revenue regardless if they chose to further censor or not. In my opinion Pakistan should not be censoring, instead they should leave it up the the individual user to decide how to handle their own accounts in response to this content.
Posted by: Bruce | May 24, 2010 at 05:04 PM