The Asia Internet Coalition — which includes Google, Facebook and Twitter — is threatening to pull out of Pakistan because of new rules that would have a significant impact upon the freedom of expression. How bitterly ironic. The global tech giants, long established as enemies of the freedom of expression, are now facing the same pressures with which they have tormented users in America (and other Western countries).
Social media companies or Internet service providers will face up to $3,140,000 in fines “for failure to curb the sharing of content deemed to be defamatory of Islam,” among other “offences.” So while they were protecting Islam in the West, they, too, have now come up against the Sharia, and this enrages them to the extent that they now want to leave Pakistan.
“There was no immediate comment from Khan’s government, which has repeatedly said it was not against freedom of expression,” a claim which everyone knows is absurd. From the moment Imran Khan became Prime Minister of Pakistan, he has been on a quest to destroy the freedom of speech worldwide, vowing first in August 2018 to go to the UN to stop all Muhammad cartoons. His own country enforces Islamic blasphemy laws that he aims to see exported worldwide.
More recently, Khan renewed his call on Muslim countries to “act together against Islamophobia” in the face of French president Macron’s defense of free speech, after the French schoolteacher Samuel Paty was beheaded for showing his pupils Muhammad cartoons.
“Global tech giants threaten to leave Pakistan over new rules,” Associated Press, November 22, 2020:
Islamabad – Internet and technology companies have threatened to leave Pakistan after the government granted blanket powers to authorities to censor digital content, a move critics say was aimed at curtailing freedom of expression in the conservative Islamic nation.
Thursday’s warning from the Asia Internet Coalition, which represents global technology giants including Google, Facebook and Twitter, comes after the government of Prime Minister Imran Khan granted enhanced powers to government media regulators Wednesday.
The coalition said it was “alarmed by the scope of Pakistan’s new law targeting internet companies, as well as the government’s opaque process by which these rules were developed.”
Under the new regulations, social media companies or internet service providers face a fine of up to $3.14 million for failure to curb the sharing of content deemed to be defamatory of Islam, promoting terrorism, hate speech, pornography or any content viewed as endangering national security.
Social media companies are required to provide Pakistan’s designated investigation agency “with any information or data in decrypted, readable and comprehensible format,” according to Pakistan’s DAWN newspaper. Pakistan also wants the social media companies to have their offices in the country.
The coalition said the “draconian data localization requirements will damage the ability of people to access a free and open internet and shut Pakistan’s digital economy off from the rest of the world.” It said the new rules will make it difficult for its members “to make their services available to Pakistani users and businesses.”
There was no immediate comment from Khan’s government, which has repeatedly said it was not against freedom of expression.
Khan’s office had previously said the new rules were made after observing a delayed response in the removal of anti-Pakistan, obscene and sectarian-related content by social media sites since 2018, when Khan’s government came into power.
Under the new regulations, social media companies are required to remove or block any unlawful content from their websites within 24 hours after being reported by Pakistani authorities….
Mount Zion says
Khan is a fox and Islam is his den.
mortimer says
Yep … Pakistan is one of the most fanatical Islamic countries. It’s ‘Berzerkistan’.
terry sullivan says
uk must treat pakistan as an enemy
stop all aid
block pakistanis from settling here
deport those from uk that are a problem
Ade Fegan says
I know what that feels like … Preaching to the choir … because nobody else ever listens
Raja says
Long overdue. Pakistan a terrorist state always for jihad never at peace with civilized world including UK.. If UK still wants to engage with this evil empire, it is giving its tacit approval to every evil that Pakistan perpetrates on her own citizen.
Ingrid Barth says
So true, and now these giants have to face the same shit against freedom of speech, as they´ve done it to their users.
Seems as if karma works qickly, lol ! 😀
As long as moslem states are not willing to accept all human rights,also for so-called infidels-as long should Europe never let them in or take care about them. We have to pütotect our peopüle first,of course.
Hopefully facebook and others will accept freedom of speech now.
gravenimage says
Trump cut aid to Pakistan because of enabling Jihad–but all this will likely be restored under Biden.
John says
UK must treat all of islam as the Enemy.
jca reid says
Doubt it. Google has removed me from “Facebook” for exactly this: criticising Islam. They’re also trying to deplatform & demonitise, in UK, critics of Islam who post their video clips. Furthermore, they also go after folk who are anti EU, (i.e. pro BREXIT), & pro Trump.
Ingrid Barth says
Same here, I am so angry about it and I won´t get back to facebook as long as Zuckerberg is not able to accept our basic rights: the freedom of speech. When I am allowed to critisize our protestant church, I am also allowed to critisize islam. There is no law -anywhere-that forbids to critisize any religion !
Zuckerberg must be completely mad, our laws are mad, how could they crawl on the ground in front of these fanatical jihadists? They are traitors. They won´t respect our basic rights or the people of Europe nor their users. . Our freedom is the highest law and right.
Facebook is stoneaged in front of my eyes, and I hate that so much. The fanatic moslem users there even threaten me – as a german woman — to behead me, or to rape me and nothing happens to stop them, but whenever I critisize this violence, they throw me out? And punish me, for what?
Terrible, You really can feel like burnt as it happened to Jeanne d`Arc in public, this is so midaged nowadays.
Shame on Mark Zuckerberg. It´s injustice and this is bigger than any nazi, as they always shout at me with their silly lies and bad propaganda. How can they collaborate weith these violent human despiting stoneaged jihadists?
We are living in very dark times again….and .it´s like war against european people and our freedom.
Sue Stammers says
Ive had 3 laptops “DIE” on me in 4 yrs, because of silencing Freedom Of Speech, which we lost a decade ago.
marc says
While there’s some very insidious censorship going on, there is no way they could be physically damaging hardware/laptops.
Something else is going on, could be something like bad power supply, over heating, fluffy carpets etc.
What did they “die” of?
gravenimage says
+1
revereridesagain says
Interesting how many brain-dead, superstitious, irrational people have managed to pick up on the artificially created term “Islamophobia”, implying the opposition to the totalitarian ideology of Islam is a mental illness, instead of simply protesting “opposition to the holy necessity of being totally subjugated to Islam on penalty of beheading”. Shows you even the dumbest can learn when it is to their advantage.
Wellington says
Google, Facebook and Twitter.
The Neville Chamberlains of our time.
Most worrisome: Chamberlain finally realized in his last year of life or so how wrong he had been. Can’t say the same for the immensely rich but still profoundly foolish people who run modern media platforms which have done far more damage to freedom than Chamberlain ever did.
Brando says
Guys,just today JAY SMITH made a video about the latest video by YASIR QADHI.
Yasir Qadhi is a famous US Muslim intellectual who several months ago admitted the Traditional Muslim Narrative about the Koran “Has HOLES in IT”.
CONFIRMED: THE KORAN HAS NOT BEEN PREFECTLY PRESERVED
If a Muslim sees it, he sees Islam is False: because the Koran says there is an ETERNAL KORAN in HEAVEN,
and the ones we have today are Perfect Copies.
SCHOLAR DAN BRUBAKER
1.Muslim ORTHODOXY and the Evidence say the EARLIEST copies of the Koran had NO VOWELS.
2.But that ALL the CONSONANTS in ALL the EARLIEST COPIES are EXACTLY the SAME.
3.That is the 100% Proof of the Perfect Preservation.
DAN BRUBAKER has examined the earliest and discovered it is FALSE.
YASIR QADHI’s VIDEO
He overwhelmingly calls Jay Smith, David Wood and Daniel Brubaker people who have NO INTEGRITY,etc.
Here is JAY SMITH’s video:
“Jay the “UltraCrepidarian” Responds to Yasir Qadhi” ( 39 min )
https://youtu.be/VOq29ZgvXOo
Brando says
Here is the Original Video by YASIR QADHI:
“Library Chats #10: Responding to Jay Smith & David Wood on the ‘Holes In the Narrative’ Controversy”
https://youtu.be/kR34v-IIyeY
Westman says
Pakistan may throw tantrums yet knows well that any physical battle with the West would be lost. It is hopelessly uncompetitive in the modern world and looking for a way to shield its Muslims from even the fair criticism that ensues when the West reads its barbaric “holy” books and views the mahem of their most ardent believers.
Maybe the tech giants will “man up” and sever the links to Pakistan. Nothing could send a clearer message that Pakistan is an isolate badger with no teeth. Let China provide them with the social media and China’s intrusive surveillance to measure, “good citizenry”, while implementing the BRI.
Infidel Pride says
The thing that surprised me in this story was Google, Facebook and Twitter objecting to Pakistan’s rules, since they all do censor ‘Islamophobic’ content I recall somebody’s tweet being blocked b’cos they violate Pakistani law – and that tweet was here in the US (I forget the person who got censored). I used to have a Twitter account, which was suspended for a tweet in which I used the term ‘rapefugee’ for Muslim refugees in Europe who routinely raped local women. I returned months later, deleted the tweet and also found that most of the people I followed and who followed me were banned, so I just went ahead and deleted my account. Now I’m there on both Parler and Gab
Social media companies like Google and Facebook may live in the delusion that they can be truly global companies and operate everywhere under the same rules. Wrong! They have to live by Chinese and Islamic rules if they wanna operate in those countries, and they’ll find themselves strongly opposed if they try to import those rules here!
My only criticism of every critic of social media: shut down your mainstream Twitter/Facebook accounts and move to Parler/Gab, or just participate in discussions on websites you follow. That’s what I do – mainly here and Breitbart, as well as on Parler
Raja says
Infidel, thanks for your tips…I barely use Facebook, twitter. I hate Zuckerberg for his bias against conservatives. I will be happy if he or his company is desisted from all the injustice he perpetrates 24×7
mortimer says
The Asia Internet Coalition — which includes Google, Facebook and Twitter — has to decide how much censorship they are willing to endorse. They readily censor non-politically correct or conservative messages.
They banning people who criticized Islam, but this demand from Pakistan is now all about Sharia-inspired censorship.
Google, Facebook and Twitter seem to have decided they will continue to censor and ban dissent from their ideas, but they will not submit to Sharia blasphemy laws.
The Muslim fanatics will have to go after Google, Facebook and Twitter to soften up their resistance to submission.
gravenimage says
Google, Facebook and Twitter threaten to leave Pakistan over crackdown on speech offensive to Islam
………….
But haven’t all these companies been working hand-in-glove with Islam to do just this? I *wish* I could see this as a turning point for them…
eduardo odraude says
You see, Islam-criticism is penetrating from around the world even into the heart of Pakistan, and the Islamic leadership there senses on some level that the transmission of the truth about Muhammad is destroying Islam’s credibility from within. Islam-criticism and the technological projection of liberal democratic culture around the globe are having sufficient effect to begin to shift the ground under the Islamic world. That’s part of why Islamic leaders want to stifle and censor Islam-critical content. Of course they also want to censor it because their core texts tell them it’s blasphemous. But here and there as never before among Muslims sprout creeping inklings of doubt about what is up and what down, what sacred and what a sham, and consequently there is more apostasy from Islam than ever before in 1400 years. Islam will just collapse into nothing if adequately exposed to the light of uncensored discussion, criticism, and debate.
SamB says
Why fret over this ruling, Social media has always been in the same bed with Islam. Careful evaluation of their actions 2020 will show that Christian principles was never endearing to them. In fact, ensuring the integrity of Islam is always a priority. If I am reading the News\Social outlets correctly then the [Christian]founding principles of America is of ill consequence. This is further amplified by the amount invested by Muslim regimes [and China]. It is therefore anathema for these outlets to bite the hands that feeds it. Imran Khan is only asking what is reasonable…
Giacomo Latta says
Did Khan, a good muslim leader of a muslim nation, authorize Facebook, Google and Twitter to criticize him and his muslim nation? What blasphemy! Put a fatwa out on all of them, Khan.
OLD GUY says
Pakistan and Islam are the ENEMY. In a rational world all freedom loving people would avoid doing business with the enemy. However in a multi national corporation environment these companies will do business with anyone.
The same can be said about politicians today who will accept funding from foreign supported local organizations that are diffidently enemies of state.