Facebook too should be banned, activist says

Karachi: Pakistanis yesterday largely supported the government action of blocking Twitter for holding a blasphemous competition on its site, but many believed that the ban was not the solution to end such undesirable acts.

"We really support the government action because it was a sheer blasphemy of our beloved Prophet (PBUH) and we cannot compromise on his dignity, honour and respect," said Talha Jatoi, a news anchor on a private television channel. But Jatoi believed that the ban should have been slapped on Facebook because it was the actual site holding the competition.

"Facebook is holding the competition and Twitter was doing the marketing of that event so the former should have been banned, too, if anything effective is to be done," Jatoi said.

Rights activists, while condemning the site for promoting hate-material, disapproved of the ban saying it was not a fair solution as well.

"It is a deplorable act if someone promotes insult or hatred against anyone," Akhtar Baloch, a human right activist, said.

"But I am not able to understand why the ban is considered a solution here whereas I have never heard of any other [Muslim] country which might have banned the sites," said Baloch, who is the executive member of Pakistan Human Rights Commission.

The ban was an imprudent decision for some as, in this tech-savvy time, it was a childish act to ban or censor things.

"You can block it, but people would access such sites through improvised means, so it is a nonsensical act," said Fatima Zamir, a housewife.

"Instead, we better stress interfaith dialogue and more communication with others to make our viewpoint more understandable," she said.