Image source: http://www.mactropolis.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2009/02/apple-bans-facebook.jpg
Bangladesh has finally lifted the ban on Facebook [1] after blocking access to it for a week.
Facebook is a social networking giant based in the United States
The impoverished country’s Telecommunications Regulatory Commission ordered its international gateway providers to allow the web site on Bangladeshi internet accounts after the company agreed to remove all ‘blasphemous’ and obnoxious material.
This follows the lifting of the ban in Pakistan [2], which, in addition to Facebook, also blocked YouTube and 1, 200 other web sites.
Both countries, which are predominantly Muslim, temporarily cut off access to these web sites because the sites hosted images of the Prophet Mohammed. Thousands of demonstrators demanded Facebook to be banned for spreading ‘anti-Islamic propaganda’.
Video: Facebook ban ordered by Pakistan court, 19 May 2010
Source: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ten-h-fBIWw
In addition to Bangladesh and Pakistan, Facebook has been banned intermittently by China, Iran and Vietnam.
The reason for banning web sites seems to be due to cultural insensitivity. When designing and managing online and print publications, all effort has to be taken to ensure cultural sensitivity [3]. However, on a social networking platform, this would be very difficult. The onus, therefore, lies on individual account holders and the web community to ensure that offensive material is properly dealt with.
However, banning publications for the sole reason of preventing dissenting views is counterproductive to the creation of a progressive, globalised society. It has the effect of feeding the populace one point of view, which may perhaps lead them to become more extreme in their way of thinking.
Read a Bangladeshi blogger’s views on the Facebook ban here.
