Wednesday, June 2, 2010

To facebook or not to facebook ?? that is the question


It was 2007 that a Danish Newspaper Jylend Posten printed some offensive cartoon depicting our Prophet Muhammad (Peace be upon him) in a comical sense. Muslims umma was infuriated for the disrespect shown to the final prophet and harbinger of religion for all mankind.

In Pakistan the reaction was violent. Widely spread looting, burning and general mayhem continued for several days. Several buses of a premium bus service were burn in Peshawar. ATM broken in to of various banks. Instead of trying to put the anger in a positive direction and recording our sentiments in a positive way this action was like burning your own house down, if the neighbor humiliates you. Emboldened by the lack of singular effort from Islamic Countries, other news papers from neighboring countries also reprinted that cartoon, in the name of promoting free speech.

In may 2010, some xyz bloke made a “everybody draw Muhammad” group on Facebook and people started gathering on that. They decided to celebrate a day to hold a competition for these blasphemous sketches. Another great offense against the sentiments of Muslims.

Our reaction in Pakistan, a person filed a case in LHC, LHC ordered blocking the blasphemous page only. Ministry of Information Technology bans the base URL www.facebook.com from PIE (Pakistan Internet Exchange), provides a phone number where citizens can complain and get the sites blocked. Around 800 sites were black listed in this process including twitter and youtube, though they were again made to work.

For my on line social life and I think for most of the people who were committed to Facebook for keeping in touch with their friends this incident was like a virtual nuclear blast. Once the debris settled and the Facebook was unblocked the social landscape has become quite barren, with people shifting from Facebook to other venues like myspace etc. It seemed like lashkare Orkutt was to blame for this terrorist attack :)

Why the love of Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) rises in us

when there is an attack on our ideology, why not we show love under

normal circumstances by sticking to his words and the examples

he has left for us”

Fallout from the blocking of Facebook for common people:

  • Access denied to a powerful communication medium through which they kept in contact with families spread over whole world

  • Opportunists like millatfacebook.com start entering the market, BTW are the people behind millat facebook any way related to people behind makkah cola :)



and the greatest harm

MUSLIMS WERE UNABLE STAGE A UNIFIED

ATTACK FOR THIS BLASPHAMY AND RELAIZE

THE WORLD THAT THEIR

SENTIMENTS ARE VALUABLE AS WELL”


If their was a anti Semite group denying holocaust it would be closed. Even MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America) successfully bring down whole sites in Law Suite.


ALL THE MUSLIM COUNTRIES OF THE WORLD

FAILED TO CLOSE A SINGLE GROUP”

Why the decision to to ban facebook was questionable at best:

  • Is a Pakistan Provincial High Court has jurisdiction to pass decision on a case where the Plaintiff has already agreed to a contract with a foreign entity i.e. I agree check box when creating facebook account

  • What about all the porn sites why are not they blocked, aren't they even more blasphemous and hurtful for our din.

  • What about movie downloads that are even offered by on line portals of PTCL and Wateen

  • If facebook is blocked lets block the whole INTERNET because such thing eventually spread out of their root site and are only a Google search away.

  • What effect the blockage had on facebook, according to Alexa www.alexa.com/topsites/countries/pk total number of users of facebook from Pakistan at 2,359,620

FACEBOOK TRAFFIC FROM PAKISTAN IS ONLY .51% OF

THE TRAFFIC IT RECIEVES FROM WHOLE WIDE WORLD”


So is there any chance that .51% is going to put any dent in their viewer ship a big bold in your face NO. In fact Facebook become the grieved party. If we would have been able to convey the hurt Muslims all over the world have felt then facebook would be the cruel one.

The Solution:


Eik hon Muslim haram ki pasbani ke lie

neel ke sahil se le kar tabkhake kashgir”


  • First try to protest at OIC (Organization of Islamic Countries) level and lodge a case at International Court of Justice to block such blasphemous acts for ever with not possibility of any one doing that again

  • If unsuccessful block the facebook at OIC level.

  • Then blocking blasphemous sites would become a cat and mouse game as the content eventually spreads out, so as long as there is orkut, myspace etc, such attacks on Muslims would continue. The solution prepare a robust social site for offer in all Islamic countries like china has their own search engine baidu baidu and chat protocol QQ.

  • Involving other Islamic contories would benefit by increase the market of such products

  • If black listing is the only solution left at the country level, instead of blocking any site on whim, make a comprehensive cyber policy where specific types of content is blocked include porn,blasphemous, even soft core porn and strict adherence to Islamic moral principals.

  • This is the China Model, where they have specified things to be banned any company not cooperating gets kicked out, Google case in point.

Finally a humble plea for all my friends who think they are doing a great service to Muslim umma by not returning to face book:

IF YOU ARE STILL VISITING ;) SITES AND TORRENTING

MOVIES, AND IF NOT; EVEN THEN COME BACK TO FACEBOOK,

I M MISSING Y'ALL”


remember Farz come before any thing else in din.


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