Pakistan requests assistance from Facebook and Twitter to persecute blasphemers.
The Pakistani government has asked Facebook and Twitter to help identify Pakistani citizens accused of blasphemy.[/tweetit] If the two companies agree, then Pakistan would either punish identified offenders (if they live in Pakistan) or apply for their extradition (if the Pakistani citizen lives in another country). As per the country's orthodox blasphemy laws, they can be put to death.
Facebook, Twitter Asked by Pakistan to Identify Blasphemers[/tweetthis]
Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan, Pakistan's interior minister, informed the media that a Pakistani embassy official in Washington, DC had already interacted with Facebook and Twitter. The official has made a formal application to both social media behemoths for all information on those who had shared information that are thought to be offensive to Islam. On its own, the Pakistani government has identified a total of 11 individuals. They were being questioned for alleged blasphemy. The government will ask any host country for extradition if any Pakistani accused of blasphemy is staying in that country.
According to the BBC, Facebook, after it was requested by the Pakistani interior ministry, has consented to dispatch a team to the country. This team will try to solve all reservations regarding content on the social media site. This account, however, was not confirmed by Facebook. The California headquartered company said it reviews every government request and it is careful to protect the rights and privacy of all its users.
In its statement, Facebook said the company discloses information concerning accounts exclusively in accordance with applicable law and terms of service. The company added that international requests of a formal kind may need a Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty. The documents are needed when it comes to creating a Government Requests Report. This report is published every year.
Pakistan wants FB & Twitter 2 help it combat blasphemy – Pakistan has death sentence 4 certain cases of blasphemy https://t.co/HFTeUbDnil
— Ewelina Ochab ن (@EwelinaUO) March 19, 2017
For Facebook, this request by a Pakistani government is nothing new when it comes to demands of this nature. The company has for a long time struggled-and continues to struggle- with the huge variety of cultural norms in the countries it has a digital footprint in. Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of Facebook, acknowledges this. He has described a probable solution to this difficulty. His advice is to combine and create a huge democratic process so that standards can be determined with help from artificial intelligence and then enforced. He said users will be asked to vote on the content they want to see on their screens. Other content will be automatically filtered out.