India emerges winner - Tops in list of countries where Facebook censors the most

The News Minute | March 3, 2015 | 09.23 am ISTCensor, ban, offensive content - there has been no dearth in usage of these words in recent times across India.However, the content that Indians in the country have access to is not everything that makes its way on to the social media site as Facebook revealed that it has been ordered to block nearly five thousand 'pieces of content' during the first half of last year . Such pictures and comments blocked will be visible outside the respective countries, but not just visible back home. India, Pakistan and Turkey are the three countries that have topped the list in maximum number of Facebook posts taken down in the first half of 2014, reported CNN Money.For India alone, the ‘pieces of content’ blocked by Facebook has reached 4,960. which were those “reported primarily by law enforcement officials and the India Computer Emergency Response Team under local laws prohibiting criticism of a religion or the state.”But does Facebook have a choice?What would Facebook do if it had to choose between censoring their posts or getting banned in a country?Apparently, censorship wins in the end.A company that has been portrayed as one that defends its users’ power to speak freely, Facebook has played it smart by not bowing down to situations easily but by narrowly abiding by government orders, said the report .According to company filings, the company abides by set local laws because the alternative is more drastic - being shut down completely that will in turn harm the company. For example, the company can take a stand and not bend down. However, the repercussions of such a move can go anyway.  According to the report, nearly half of Turkey’s 81 million population use the social media site. If Facebook thought that Turkey would not go so far as to ban it, the report said that it would have to rethink the decision as Turkey had already blocked Twitter and Youtube early this year. However, whats interesting is that its not just these 3 countries topping the charts. Even those like France, Germany and the UK are in the list for having made some censorship demands. While India topped with 4960 reports over content related to religion and the government , Turkey came in second with 1893 demands.  Pakistan came in third with 1773 'pieces of content'  removed. TweetFollow @thenewsminute