Censorship: Keeping secrets in the Facebook age?

Which countries are controlling information on Facebook and why

Facebook recently revealed that censorship on the social networking site had increased by 19% between July 2013 and June 2014.

Countries notify the social networking giant of “things that are illegal under local law” and the company removes the content accordingly, stated a Facebook spokesperson in a Mashable article last week. In certain cases, access to user accounts is also granted to countries according to the same principle. Hence, some governments end up restricting and removing a lot more content than others based on its local realities, laws, censorship practices and interpretation of what benefits or harms public interest. Currently, India leads the list with restricting access to 4,960 pieces of content, followed by Turkey and Pakistan with 1,893 and 1,773 pieces of content removed respectively.



Here is a look at 15 of the 83 countries listed on the network’s third transparency report where information was controlled in the period January-June 2014 and the broad reasons for doing so:

Pakistan’s shrinking space



Censorship in Pakistan has increased exponentially in recent months. The number of removed pieces of content skyrocketed from 162 in the last six months of 2013 to 1,773 in the first half of 2014. According to Facebook, these requests were made by the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority and the Ministry of Information Technology under local laws which prohibit blasphemy and criticism of the state.

Published in The Express Tribune, Sunday Magazine, November 16^th, 2014.