Prophet Muhammad Goes Viral – Pakistan Bans Facebook & YouTube
A viral Prophet Mohammad cartoon contest has enraged Pakistani officials who have temporarily blocked social media giants Facebook and YouTube throughout the Asian country.
Molly Norris was blamed for starting the controversy after she drew a parodized version of the religious figure to complement a recent South Park episode which was condemned and censored for its depiction of the muslim Prophet.
Norris was also accused of creating the Facebook fan page ‘Let’s All Draw Mohammad Day May 20’. The page quickly gained 98,700 fans before being pulled. She vehemently denies being the group creator and links to a fan page which is against the original page from her own website.
The fan page has been countered by viral protests including a fan page called ‘We Love Prophet Muhammed’ which has 120, 595 fans as of this writing.
One of the wall posts suggests that now that the group has gathered masses through Facebook, that members collectively deactivate their accounts – how ironic.
Although Norris denies being involved with creating the fan page, she is taking responsibility for cancelling the event.
“I apologize to people of Muslim faith and ask that this ‘day’ be called off,” she said.
The Breakdown
The internet is anarchic. There are no rules – it is vile and ruthless. Are Facebook and YouTube to blame for the actions of its collective?
Where are the lines drawn between offensive content and freedom of speech?
Here’s the fundamental truth of the internet: an anarchist envionment cannot be controlled regardless of religious or political belief.
In this case, Islam understandably wants to maintain its sanctity. At the same time, this is compromised by democracy’s staple of realising the imagination and creating reality from ideas.
Although the two are not entirely opposing since both Islam and democracy do share many mutual commonalities, it is difficult to decipher how the global community will move forward when instances of this nature come about in the future.
In the western world, democracy and religion were a pinnacle of disagreement which is why the separation of state and church has worked so well since the Enlightenment.
My Opinon
If you are asking me specifically for an opinion on this particular incident – I will have to admit that I don’t have an opinion: no comment.
The function for this website is primarily to use these types of instances to reflect upon the media at large and to convey a course of action or to conclude that no resolution can exist.
For this case, I do not see a viable solution where governments can control their populations to such a magnitude.
We have seen China’s repeated attempts to censor what the government believes to be dissenting voices to their agenda. I think will be exceedingly difficult to maintain censorship with the emergence of revolutionary new forms to communicate messages.
To turn off the giant cyber-machine is to stand up and leave the dialogue without addressing the lesson – and as an advocate of communication and social media, this is one measure which I oppose.
How do you think the world can unite online while maintaing mutual respect for the many global cultures?
What is our best course of action?
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