WASHINGTON: CEO and Founder of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg today said, his social network’s removal of actor Hamza Ali Abbasi’s status regarding the Charlie Hebdo attack and freedom of expression may have been a mistake.
When asked by one profile Angelic Munni what Zuckerberg has to say about his network’s deletion of Hamza’s post, Mark Zuckerberg responded: “I don’t think this should have been blocked. Our team might have made a mistake. Justin, can you look into this?”
In the response, Zuckerberg tagged Justin Osofsky, whose Facebook profile identifies him as Vice-President of Global Operations and Media Partnerships for Facebook.
An internet rights group in Pakistan had slammed Facebook ‘double standards’ today, a day after Pakistani actor and director Hamza Ali Abbasi Sunday said, the network deactivated his profile and removed a post in which he had called on the West to rethink its definition of ‘freedom of expression’.
“This is beyond ridiculous,” Sana Saleem of Bolo Bhi said. “I don’t understand what this double standard is.” Hamza posted a screenshot of the deleted post on Sunday along with Facebook’s notification that said they had removed it since it violated the social networking website’s community standards.
The actor, who is vocal on social media about his views related to social issues, politics, culture, and religion had condemned the killings at Paris’ Charlie Hebdo office last week and said, “even my blood boils when someone insults my Prophet (Peace be Upon Him) but that does not give individuals the right to kill”.
In the status shared on his verified Facebook account he said that while “freedom of expression should include criticism, disagreement or even rejection of faiths or ideology but should not and must not allow “insult”.
Hamza went on to say that the West must revisit and fix its definition of ‘freedom of speech,’ otherwise someone from the two billion Muslim populations “will go ballistic and kill unjustly”.
“Would it be ‘freedom of expression’ if I brand black people as niggers or if I say Hitler was a messiah?” he added.
Saleem, whose organization advocates digital security and privacy, said the social network was guilty of hypocrisy. “Facebook removes pictures of a woman breastfeeding, but they won’t, for instance, remove images of child pornography,” she said, citing the example of Facebook’s refusal to take down a page promoting child prostitution despite repeated complaints.
“What are the standards for Facebook when it comes to removing content? How does it work? Is it automated? If so, it’s completely flawed,” says Saleem. “If it’s a team reviewing content, it is flawed. This is very worrying because Facebook now owns Intsagram and Whatsapp. If the same policies are applied across the board, that will be the death of freedom of expression,” she adds.
The incident comes just days after Facebook’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg stressed on the company’s commitment to freedom of speech, and pointed out that a ‘extremist in Pakistan’ had tried to have him sentenced to death for refusing to ban content about Prophet Muhammad (Peace be Upon Him). In the January 9 post, he had said, “I won’t let that happen on Facebook. I’m committed to building a service where you can speak freely without fear of violence.”
