Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan called on Facebook to ban Islamophobic content on its platform, and also issued a warning of a rise in radicalization amongst Muslims, hours after he hit out at the French president for “attacking Islam”.
As per AlJazeera, President Macron has called Islam a religion “in crisis” worldwide. PM Imran had called out the French President earlier today on Twitter in a series of tweets.
Our PM, in an open letter released on Twitter on Sunday, said: “growing Islamophobia” was encouraging extremism and violence worldwide, particularly through social media gateways such as Facebook.
He further stated in the tweet, “I would ask you to place a similar ban on Islamophobia and hate against Islam for Facebook that you have put in place for the Holocaust”.
According to Facebook, this month they are updating its hate speech policy to ban the material that denies or distorts the Holocaust.
“One cannot send a message that while hate messages against some are unacceptable, these are acceptable against others,” Khan tweeted, in addition to it he stated that such perception was “reflective of prejudice and bias that will encourage further radicalization”.
In reply, a Facebook spokeswoman told Reuters the company opposed all forms of hate and did not allow attacks based on race, ethnicity, national origin, or religion.
“We’ll remove this hate speech as soon as we become aware of it,” the spokeswoman commented, also included that Facebook had “more work to do”.
The last transparency report of Facebook for the six months to December 2019, portrayed that Pakistan was the source of the second-highest number of requests to inhibit content after Russia.
Facebook customarily complies, as not agreeing would lead to breaking Pakistan’s Laws, the source said, he further added that the authorities would often send dozens of links at a time and insist they be taken down.
In his letter, Khan also mentioned the situation in France, where, he said, Islam was being associated with terrorism.
Earlier on Sunday, Khan said French President Emmanuel Macron had “attacked Islam” by supporting the display of cartoons depicting the Prophet Mohammad.
Khan’s comments follow a similar broadside against Macron by Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan, after which France recalled its ambassador to Turkey.
Pakistan and Turkey share a strong bond, while Khan and Erdogan have developed a close relationship – particularly on the topic of Islamophobia.
As a result, Khan’s government has subjected several social media apps to intense scrutiny and banned some for content authorities deemed obscene or immoral.
Image Credits: TECHJUICE
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