Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB), according to reports, has started banning images of the prophet Muhammad. Is the move hypocritical on the part of the organization especially since Mark Zuckerberg published earlier this month a strongly-worded status update saying he won’t let anyone silence the voice and opinion of anyone else?
According to The Washington Post, an unnamed person familiar with the matter has confirmed with them that Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB) has indeed banned “content” from being available in Turkey “following a valid legal request”. The Washington Post writes that among those images are images of the prophet Muhammad.
It’s only two weeks after the world’s largest social networking site’s founder and Chief Executive Officer published a personal update where he recounted how a Pakistani “extremist” fought to have him sentenced to death because Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB) “refused to ban content about Mohammed that offended him.” The rest of Zuckerberg’s post can be viewed below.
“We stood up for this because different voices — even if they’re sometimes offensive — can make the world a better and more interesting place.
Facebook has always been a place where people across the world share their views and ideas. We follow the laws in each country, but we never let one country or group of people dictate what people can share across the world.
Yet as I reflect on yesterday’s attack and my own experience with extremism, this is what we all need to reject — a group of extremists trying to silence the voices and opinions of everyone else around the world.
I won’t let that happen on Facebook. I’m committed to building a service where you can speak freely without fear of violence.
My thoughts are with the victims, their families, the people of France and the people all over the world who choose to share their views and ideas, even when that takes courage. #JeSuisCharlie”
Now, Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB) has just banned images in Turkey – where fellow social network Twitter Inc (NYSE:TWTR) is having some trouble in – in what can be construed as against the very same idea Zuckerberg just wrote about on January 9 following the Paris attacks although the top executive did mention following laws in each country they operate in.
Facebook certainly has a record of being softer in standing its ground versus demands of governments in countries it is operating in.
Take for example China where the social networking giant is viewed as more tolerant of imposed rules and requests by authorities. In Russia, the company censored the page of Alexei Navalny, a prominent critic of Vladimir Putin, at the request of the country’s internet regulators last month.
Was what Zuckerberg wrote, a bold promise any day, just a promise without follow through?
Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB) shareholders includes Karthik Sarma’s SRS Investment Management which reported owning 5 million shares of the social networking giant by the end of September.
