Pak Facebook Ban:’Virtually’ Drastic?

Image Source: Arif Ali/AFP/Getty Images

Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) last week restricted access of Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter as a crackdown on websites with blasphemous contents. The move came after the Lahore High Court issued an order for blocking Facebook over a page hosting a competition between members to submit drawings of the Prophet Mohammed. The Facebook page encouraged users to post images of the prophet to protest threats made by a radical Muslim group against the creators of the American TV series “South Park” for depicting Muhammad in a bear suit during an episode earlier this year.

There were protests in parts of the country over “sacrilegious contents” on the websites which were banned after the government failed persuade the websites to remove the “derogatory material”. This move of the Pakistan government has also triggered a debate on whether all should be deprived of their rights though the protests were justified and could have been held in a peaceful way.
Even the Dawn, in its edit last week carried a write-up on the mood of the citizens and no doubt there were demonstrations by even the students calling for boycott of Facebook, but it was also felt that not all should have been deprived of access to all that made online life worth living. While this move of the country has been supported by most of its countrymen, the media has also actively played a role in generating an opinion.
The US media criticised the ban, while Pakistan media supported it, but the widespread opnion was that such a drastic measure was not required, especially when social networking sites do help in connecting people across the globe with not only their friends but families as well. On the other hand, what is also required is some check on such kind of misuse of the internet which hurts the sentiments of people and evokes protestations, which can make online world a better place to be in.