Facebook ban: major businesses, NGOs affected

Good post. Edit note: You’ll need to fix the URLs.Recommend

The events are not mentioned that people create on FB. Different events and work shops take place and people r invited… now no updates from any side…what event is happening, where and when… Cant publish or write anything in my magazine… Recommend

Well, you people did not mention the ban effects on Pakistani Politics. One future political party which is going to be created only on the bases of feedback sent by FB fans (Approximately 200,000 fan)to the leader of that party. Hope you better know who is that leader. :))Recommend

Hasnt the offending material been removed by Facebook last night as reported by some news sources? If so will that be enough to lift the ban? It seems that no one has any idea what will qualify in lifting the ban? With so many websites blocked does the government of Pakistan expect that each web site remove offending material first? I only hear Facebook in the news. Has someone representing the government approached all the websites that have been blocked and asked them to remove offending material? It seems that we have gone ahead with the ban in haste, having offered little or no information as to what needs to be done before it can be lifted!

The porn industry I am sure will hope that the ban remains. With all that extra bandwidth available, Pakistan being the country where “Sex” is googled the most, will finally be able to get a healthy helping of what it craves. Recommend

Thanks for adding our name (KarachiSnob) to the list. However, we have not been affected much by the banning of Facebook. Only about 4% of our site users come from Facebook and luckily we have diversified the means in which we are able to contact our site fans. I would say that the small businesses have been mostly affected since that was their main way of keeping in contact with their customer database. The larger companies generally have a well-established name, a separate client database and a frequently visited website or location. Therefore Facebook is just an added resource, but not necessarily a crucial marketing tool. A KarachiSnob site fan created our Facebook group when we first launched the site and we continue to maintain it as more of a fun marketing supplement, but most people just come directly to KarachiSnob.com for their daily needs. This would probably explain our increase in traffic since the Facebook ban. Nonetheless, we surely hope for the speedy re-opening of Facebook, as a few of our team members are showing withdrawal symptoms. In reference to our description in the article, “restaurants” is only one of 44 categories on our site. We may do some “restaurant aggregating”, but KarachiSnob.com is better classified as a “fine business directory” showcasing the top businesses in the city.Recommend

last evening i came across a news that a pakistani karachi student made a seperate fan page related to ADOLF HITLER, within two days facebook administration not only removed his page from facebook but also permanently deleted his own personal profile, and issued him a letter which said that he has no right to hurt the feelings of jews and he cannot touch such sensitive issues on a social networking website like facebook!! if facebook can take such action within such a short time then definitely facebook authorities were very well aware of what was going on and what could be the consequencies! so in my opinion facebook ban is absolutely correct as beyond draw muhammad (PBUH) naazubillah there were many other anti islam pages working on facebook and millions of people reported them but no serious action was taken!! this may even be beneficial for pakistan as it may urge pakistani youth to come up with such websites on their own and there are few working aswell!! as far as loss of ngos and other companies is concerned they survived before facebook and there loss is not more important then our Prophet (SAWW) if we took such a action ALLAH is denitely there to help us!!
http://life.xovirax.co.cc/life/
islamicfacebook.com
these websites may be not as good as facebook but we have security over here,Recommend

What amazing it is they are not asking for forgivness and you are representing it from them…Recommend

I am amazed and shocked by the Paki muslim mentality. Here they are talking about the love of the Prophet saws and on the other hand they simply copied Facebook to have a new Islamifacebook, doesnt have the creativity to even have our own brand name. We are totally retarded mentally and have our intrepretations as Islam.Recommend

Well these companies do have their facebook pages…But, in my opinion, their business does not depend upon facebook..Telecom Companies, for example, do not rely on facebook for income..Advertising through newspapers, magazines, television channels and billboards is still by far more effective than internet. I DONOT AGREE THAT BAN ON FACEBOOK WILL AFFECT THE BUSINESS OF ANY ORGANIZATION INSIDE PAKISTAN.Recommend

I strongly approve the Pakistani government’s ban on facebook but only if the government is true in its claims that they had contacted facebook and protested against the presence of pages as ridiculous as “Lets Draw Mohammed” (PBUH) first and got no response. If they just acted on an impulsive urge to prove their “muslimness” to the world, then I think our government is being its usual hypocritical self out to present an unwanted image. If the latter is true, I say let the GoP clean up their own act first and THEN act on a foreign website.

Also, using this opportunity to ban every “politically objectionable” website under the sun is also not right and should not be tolerated by civil society in Pakistan. I am not in Pakistan at the moment so I don’t know the facts but I have heard about Wikipedia etc being blocked as well. Let us not use a (now removed) page facebook as an (un-)holy excuse to further our deplorable political (censorship) aims.

Having said that, long live Islam, and long live the kindness, life stories, teachings and the perfect example set by our beloved Prophet (PBUH). “They” can try to do whatever they want, overtly and covertly, but our religion will survive, because God has taken it upon Himself to make sure of this, since us muslims are quite unworthy of calling ourselves the “torch bearers” of Mohammed (PBUH) now anyway.Recommend

In my very own personal opinion. The decision Pakistani government took was right and the ban should continue. They’ve removed the group now; very well. But it wasn’t good enough; they should have removed it right-away. Why waited for this long? Waited for 20th May to finish? Islam teaches us to practice patience, I completely agree to that and if someone will try to harm me in anyway or make fun of me, I’ll try my level best to behave as good as possible and be patient. If “ANYONE” will ever try to say a word against Muhammad (S.A.W); I’ll go ahead and will protest against it and will do everything possible.

Someone started “IslamicFacebook” … I don’t mind it. If someone else has a better name and idea; go ahead. Just make sure on your social network website you respect your religion and other religions too. Let’s not bring harm to anyone by our hands or by our words.

Issue here is not what “everyone” else is doing; what Muslims are doing etc. etc. It’s about facebook or any other website that are supporting any such pages. Facebook’s spokes person said, “there’s nothing wrong withe page.” Now this was a wrong move. Youtube was blocked; Google came up with a statement that we’ll take to Pakistani authorities and will try to resolve the issue and lift the ban. Now that’s a way sensible statement to make and keeping the room for negotiation open. They may agree to remove such content and things will go ahead. But one day you’ll come up saying, oh there’s nothing wrong with it. It’s all fine and then the competition day is over and you’ll go ahead and ban it ‘coz you’re losing users. That’s crap …

Islam also preaches forgiveness; we all Muslims know. But I’m sure you’re not an idiot who can’t understand what’s happening behind the scene. Let’s make sure we all make right decision and peacefully leave a right impression on non-Muslims.Recommend

@ Hamza there r at least 5 companies and individuals i know who made big through FB and the they r not listed above. and alot of my other friends got clientèle on FB. its like a big mall wid shops selling Quran and other items and few shops down Sex shop as well. it depends on u where u wants to shop. Recommend

It is NOT justified to cut away the ENTIRE arm, in case a tiny little mole develops on the arm.
Pakistan Government has blocked the ENTIRE site of “facebook”, instead of blocking an Objectionable Page. Recommend

aslam-o-alikum
my dear muslim brothers and sisters ,its time that we all should get united .its high time wake your conscience and look around how your muslims brothers and sisters are persecuted and oppressed only because they are muslims.these worldly losses are temporary and surely those people will be awarded in the hereafter.these companies should also boycott them and should finish all their contracts with them.Recommend

All Dear Muslims Aslamu alikum:
The lose which is beared by Mulims is much more that that of these companies.We all Muslims will never allow to these mean websites to act some shamful activity.Surely, The greatness of our great Prophet can’t be decrease but we as a Muslim condemn such kind of activity & are always be ready to secrifice our lives even.Recommend

Completely agree with this piece. Facebook is extremely useful at work as well. They banned it without thinking things through I guess. And what about the thousands of other websites that have content against Muslims and Islam? People should have countered the issue through debate and dialogue only. These are the kind of issues that can only be countered through intellect. And they gave so much publicity to the people who created this competition… exactly what they were looking for! The only positive outcome of this ban is perhaps that Pakistanis did not start burning their own shops and fighting amongst themselves, like they generally do.Recommend

It is better to ban Prono sites, which are destroying our youth.Recommend

Jahanzaib sb please edit the article for punctuation errors. What is Standard Charter? Please fix these issues for the goodwill of your website. ThanksRecommend

***Ban on face book is a bold step of Pakistani government and it means that our government has the power to stop this kind of acts.
I think that ban on facebook is not correct decision because it not only use for wrong work but for also right works, large numbers of people share through facebook Qurani Iayat and discuss other Islamicrelated issues.
Asad Zia***

[email protected]Recommend