Pakistan To Ban Facebook

By Cara

Tuesday, May 25, 2010, 15:13

About 70 per cent people in Pakistan want a permanent ban on the social networking website, Facebook, while another 15 per cent support the Lahore High Court"s order to ban the website till May 31.

According to a survey, the participants expressed their sheer anger on Facebook for displaying blasphemous drawings of Prophet Muhammad.

In the first three days of the poll, eight per cent participants were of the opinion that a single URL ban was enough, while the remaining seven per cent said they did not want ban on Facebook at all.

Acting on the court"s decision the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) had earlier directed all Internet service providers in the country to shut down Facebook, as protests over the Prophet Muhammad issue had intensified across the country.

Thousands of people had complained to Facebook to remove the blasphemous content through the website"s standard reporting procedure, but no action was taken.
However, protestors claimed that Facebook took only 20 minutes to shut down a page that contained material objectionable to the Jew.

Paksitanis view this as a discrimination against only one race and religion and demand a ban on the use of the site in their country.