Jay

Bans Prompt Facebook to Pull 'Everybody Draw Mohammed' Page (Switched)

May 31st 2010 2:48PM Another fine example of the lazy efforts that are passed off as "journalism" on the internet. Instead of actually checking facts they simply parrot reports from others and cite them as definitive.

The original site was taken down at least a week ago by the current admin because too many participants were using the site for hate-speech and not as a demonstration of free speech as was the original mission.

To their credit, Facebook did NOT cave in to pressure and in fact helped to restore the page(s) after a previous admin deleted the account/group as a response to death threats from extremists.

If you re-read the AP report you should note that they were unable to corroborate Najibullah Malik's (Secretary of Pakistan's Information Technology Ministry) claims that Facebook had provided any assurance that this would ever happen again or whether Facebook had any part in the removal of this page/group.

A quick visit to Facebook and a search for the sister pages of the original ("Everybody draw muhammed day May 20th (back up)" & "Everybody Draw Mohammad Day - May 20th, 2010") which sprung up when the original first disappeared, will show that they still exist and would indicate that Facebook is taking no such action to censor pages. This seems to indicate that Malik's comments are simply propaganda and reminiscent of Muhammed Saeed al-Sahaf (Iraqi Information Minister.)

Keep up the great work Amar. This is a nice OpEd but falls a bit short if you intended it as factual reporting

Jay