The News Minute | February 6, 2015 | 3.45 pm
Facebook in January reportedly decided to ban some pages showing images of Prophet Mohammed following a Turkish court ruling, which threatened to block the social network site entirely if it did not remove the images.
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has been strongly criticized by world media for taking this decision just two weeks after he defended had the right to free speech in the wake of the Charlie Hebdo terror attacks.
Zuckerberg on January 8 had posted on his wall that Facebook has always been a place where people across the world share their views and ideas and though Facebook follows the laws in each country, it never let one country or group of people dictate what people can share across the world.
“Sweeping promises are all well and good, but Facebook’s record doesn’t entirely back it up”, The Washington Post criticized FB’s move in Turkey.
According to the BBC, Facebook has now banned some pages that depicted the Prophet Mohammed in a bad light.
Reports say that some of the images on those pages have been taken directly from the pages of Charlie Hebdo - the very images Zuckerberg was defending.
Daily Mail has reacted to the incident stating “Facebook's founder was branded 'a first rate coward', a 'sorry excuse for a human', and 'a liberal coward' by users after news of the decision became public”
Earlier In December 2014, the site had removed a Russian page linked to Alexei Navalny, a well-known critic of Valdimir Putin, after requests from internet regulators of the country.
Facebook has also been alleged to have censored contents of rebel groups in Syria and China, as well as campaign groups demanding freedom for Tibet.
“The company often complies to government requests and warrants” states The Telegraph. .