Facebook assures purge of anti-Islamic content

Administration’s vice-president reiterates commitment to promote values in congruence with community standards

ISLAMABAD: In a major development regarding efforts being made for countering and removing sacrilegious content from social media, Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali met Facebook Vice President Joel Kaplan on Friday and discussed various steps and actions being taken to remove the content that is illegal in Pakistan.

Facebook, on its part, has reiterated its commitment to keep the platform safe and promote values that are in congruence with its community standards. It also committed to remove fake accounts, explicit, hateful and provocative material that incites violence and terrorism.

Giving details of the meeting, an interior ministry spokesman said that this is for the first time that a senior member of Facebook, dealing with Global Public Policy, has visited Pakistan to discuss a way forward towards addressing the issue of misuse of social media platforms.

The interior minister, the spokesperson said, has been playing a proactive role in engaging the internet service providers and finding solution to the issue of misuse of social media. This also included convening of a special meeting of the ambassadors of the Muslim countries in March on a single-point agenda to discuss blasphemous content  on social media and how to effectively raise voice of the entire Muslim world against the madness unleashed against Islam and holy personalities in the name of freedom of expression.



This was followed by a meeting of the minister with secretary general OIC in April on this issue.

The spokesperson said that while talking to the vice president, Chaudhry Nisar said that the entire Muslim Ummah was greatly disturbed and has serious concerns over the misuse of social media platforms to propagate blasphemous content. “Nothing is more sacred to us than our religion and our holy personalities,” the minister observed.

He said that the government of Pakistan firmly believes in freedom of expression but cannot allow anyone to misuse social media for hurting religious sentiments or undertaking unlawful activities.

The minister said that Pakistan appreciates the understanding shown by the Facebook administration and the cooperation being extended on these issues.

Chaudhry Nisar also appreciated Facebook for bridging communication gaps and providing people a platform not only to interact but also serving as a vehicle for promotion of education, businesses, socio-economic development and empowering women in the country.

To further this purpose in Pakistan, the interior minister also encouraged Facebook to open up office in Pakistan, saying that local offices of service providers would not only help them extend their outreach but would also be instrumental in bringing the government and the service providers closer to each other and forge a mutually beneficial partnership.

During the meeting, Kaplan highlighted various initiatives of Facebook that are aimed at skill development and economic growth programmes in Pakistan, working with developers, small businesses and women in the country.

He said that Facebook’s Developers Circles - a free community-led program for developers to connect, learn and collaborate with other local developers - have been started in Lahore and Karachi and would be launched in Islamabad soon.

Kaplan also informed the minister that Facebook has recently launched a digital literacy campaign called iChamp with a goal to touch secondary schools on a mass scale across Pakistan to educate youth on the benefits and safe use of internet.

The programme will be supported by Facebook’s Free Basic project that provides free access to dozens of fun and learning websites. Covering 76 districts across all four provinces, Gilgit-Baltistan and Azad Kashmir, an estimated 600,000 students will be trained by experts through Free Basics with free handbook and other resources.