Face book blocks access in India to controversial page

[sparklingway]

Facebook blocks access in India to controversial page
Facebook is already banned in Pakistan because of the page which has invited cartoons of Prophet Mohammed

John Ribeiro

Facebook has blocked in India the controversial "Everybody draw Mohammed Day!" page that last week led to the site being banned in Pakistan.

The move follows protests by Muslims in the country over the page which invites users to put up caricatures of Prophet Mohammed.

"Out of respect for the local regulations, standards and customs, we have decided to restrict access to the ‘Everyone Draw Mohammed!’ page from India, after being contacted by authorities and reviewing the matter closely," a spokeswoman for Facebook said on Sunday in an email.

We have not removed the Page from Facebook, but have only restricted access to it from India," she added.

The page was inaccessible from India from late Saturday.

Officials at India’s Departments of Telecommunications and Ministry of Home Affairs said on Sunday that they were not aware of the Indian government blocking the site. The country’s Information Technology (Amendment) Act 2008 allows the government to block web sites under certain conditions.

Access to Facebook was restricted on Wednesday in Pakistan by the local regulator, Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA). Earlier, a court in the country had instructed the government to block the site. On Thursday, PTA also blocked YouTube, citing sacrilegious content on the video-streaming Web site.

Facebook may consider IP blocking in Pakistan after further review of local regulations, standards and customs, the Facebook spokeswoman said on Sunday.

A move to block the page in Pakistan would be in line with Facebook’s stated policy on the issue.

When dealing with user-generated content on global Web sites, there are occasions where content that is illegal in one country is not, or may even be protected, in another, Facebook said on Thursday. Most companies, including Facebook, approach this issue by preventing certain content from being shown to users in the countries where it is illegal, it added.

The "Everyone Draw Mohammed!" page had 112,541 fans and 12,983 photos on Sunday. The page was however brought down on Thursday for two days by a page moderator who got scared after his e-mail and Skype account was hacked into, and his personal data revealed, according to a post on the page on Saturday.

The page has spawned a number of look-alike pages on Facebook with the same or similar names, as well as pages opposing it.

 

[Nononsense]

i think good sense prevailed to Facebook management, they definitely do not want to annoy whole world.
I also tried yesterday, "i searched "every body draw"",results showed only "Every body who is against Draw you know who.."

 

[Nononsense]

But You tube still has videos, actually it is not possible to stop "Youtube" content. By the time you report and admins look at it ..it is already done the damage.

Only sensible way is to ignore! so it dies its e-death

 

[Jazzbot]

ignoring these craps is not solution. What made them think of restricting the page in india..? ofc the ban issued by Pakistan. Believe me if few more Muslim countries will issue ban to FuuckFaceBook, they will be forced to remove that page.

 

[vishal_gutsy]

i wonder why facebook decided to remove that page.

that page should not have been removed.
poor facebook got intimidated by bullies.

 

[JonAsad]

When you attack black people,they call it Racism.
When you attack Jewish people,they call it Anti-semetism.
When you attack women,they call it Sexism.
When you attack homosexuality,they call it Intolerance.
When you attack your country,they call it Treason.
When you attack a religious sect,they call it Hate Speech.
But
When you attack our Prophet, they want to call it "Freedom of Speech"!!!

 

[Raghu]

The original page is down from Thursday.

but similar sounding pages are up and available.

I've been visiting a page created with same name as the original one "Everybody Draw Mohammad Day - May 20th, 2010 + others " for last few days ,in fact i visited that today itself.

It has a icon of a Bear welding a sword with 17,793 fan following and 3099 fan created pics .

 

[Awesome]

When you attack black people,they call it Racism.
When you attack Jewish people,they call it Anti-semetism.
When you attack women,they call it Sexism.
When you attack homosexuality,they call it Intolerance.
When you attack your country,they call it Treason.
When you attack a religious sect,they call ... it Hate Speech.
But
When you attack our Prophet, they want to call it "Freedom of Speech"!!!

I personally think everything should be allowed by law, but should not be done anyway.

 

[EjazR]

^^^^

No wonder, you have been filled with blind hatred by an Islamaphobic websites. Quite understandable, why not go to Faithfreedom.com - exposing the lies and vile propaganda behind faithfreedom.org and secularislam.org to clear your prejudices.

Btw the website/forum you point to, the admin has posted saying he wants to nuke all of Iran (which ofcourse includes his family as he claims to be Iranian). At another place he wants to nuke all muslims. So he has similar views like Hitler who wanted to do the same to Jews for example.
So I don't think you should be believing a person with homicidal tendencies on ANYTHING, let alone on Islam.

 

[vishal_gutsy]

^^^^

No wonder, you have been filled with blind hatred by an Islamaphobic websites. Quite understandable, why not go to Faithfreedom.com - exposing the lies and vile propaganda behind faithfreedom.org and secularislam.org to clear your prejudices.

Btw the website/forum you point to, the admin has posted saying he wants to nuke all of Iran (which ofcourse includes his family as he claims to be Iranian) So I don't think you should be believing a person with homicidal tendencies on ANYTHING, let alone on Islam.

i have seen all these websites and read all thier debates.
and frankly speaking , since ure an india ,, i really dont have any problem with u.

i guess u should read all the debates on that site..??

and about nuking iran is concerned... plz show me that link where he says he will nuke iran...???

i have read each on every word of his debates on his sites.
dont be deluded frend.

 

[EjazR]

On topic, Indian laws prohibit any content that is deemed insulting or demeaning to any community in India. This is not just for Muslims. Facebook was acting within the legal parameters in India. IF there was a constructive criticism about muslims themselves then that would be a different story but this is certainly not the case here.

But ofcourse, I would rather prefer that muslims follow the path of the Prophet Muhammed SAW to show by action who he was. PRophet Muhammed (SAW) is too great a personality to be affected by those with such small attitudes.

The right response would be to gather people of other faiths in a global dialogue. Preach the values of Islam---to muslims first as they seem to lack them and then to inform non-muslims on what Islam is really about.

However, what I don't like is the hijacking of this issue by political Islamic parties in Pakistan in particular. This is looking more and more like a ploy to deflect attention and raise Anti-American sentiment when this has nothing to do with America. Logically speaking even Facebook is not directly responsible for this, its user content. So its illogical to blame Facebook alone for this. This is hardly the most important issue facing the muslims today and particularly Pakistanis. So the sooner this is put behind us the better.

Iam in agreement with this well written article
http://www.defence.pk/forums/curren...s/58935-ban-hypocrisy-instead.html#post877168

 

[EjazR]

i have seen all these websites and read all thier debates.
and frankly speaking , since ure an india ,, i really dont have any problem with u.

i guess u should read all the debates on that site..??

and about nuking iran is concerned... plz show me that link where he says he will nuke iran...???

i have read each on every word of his debates on his sites.
dont be deluded frend.

He deleted that post once people started criticizing him on it. Rest assured there is a screenshot saved on Faithfreedom.com - exposing the lies and vile propaganda behind faithfreedom.org and secularislam.org

Besides, if you want to be honest with yourself and truly/honestly want to learn about Islam, I would sincerely recommend not falling for Islamophobic websites like these. There are many muslims even on PDF here itself who will look at their society critically. There are some good books out there as well on extremism and related topics.
And nothing better than an unbiased translation of the Quran to clear doubts on what the basic teachings of Islam are.

I don't want to discuss this too much as this is offtopic, but do go through faithfreedom . com

 

[Jazzbot]

@ vishal_gutsy

I hate ppl who just look at 1 side of the picture and conclude at that limited information. such conclusions are disastrous and mis-leading. So first study things before criticizing on them, it will help you to become more mature and better person in terms of knowledge.

No religion, i repeat NO RELIGION teaches its believers to create violence and kill innocents. I am talking in general not specifically about Islam. So better correct your knowledge base before coming up with such stupid and mis-leading comments.

 

[nomi007]

it is duty of all of us to block these types of pictures of every religion.whether they are of Muslims or Christians as well as Hindus.

 

[Jazzbot]

and frankly speaking , since ure an india ,, i really dont have any problem with u.

So its hatred towards Islam or is it wrapped with hatred towards Pakistani's..?

Isn't this insanity that you are coming up with such pathetic remarks against islam when I posted something. on the other hand, when an Indian Muslim named Ejaz posted same things in favor of Islam you said:

and frankly speaking , since ure an india ,, i really dont have any problem with u.

W T F..?