Technocrat Mark Zuckerberg has revealed shocking details about how he was “almost sentenced to death for blasphemy in Pakistan”. The Meta CEO was speaking on Joe Rogan’s podcast, as he explained how Meta is facing tough challenges in Pakistan due to a lawsuit over alleged blasphemous content on Facebook.
The lawsuit accused Meta(Facebook) of hosting content that violates Pakistan’s strict blasphemy laws. Mark Zuckerberg said that Meta is committed to balancing free expression with respect for local regulations and cultural values in specific countries.
He said, “There are laws in different countries that we disagree with. For example, there was a point at which someone was trying to get me sentenced to death in Pakistan because someone on Facebook had a picture where they had a drawing of Prophet Mohammed, and someone said, ‘That’s blasphemy in our culture.’ They sued me and opened this criminal proceeding.”
“I don’t know exactly where it went because I’m just not planning to go to Pakistan, so I was not that worried about it,” he continued.
He did acknowledge that the lawsuit against him was a “little disconcerting”, adding that “But it was a little bit disconcerting – I was like, alright, these guys are like – it’s not great (if you’re) flying over that region, you don’t want your planeyou don’t want your plane to go down above Pakistan, if that thing goes through. That one was sort of avoidable.”
Zuckerberg also demanded more help from the US government to safegaurd american businesses overseas, “The point is, there are places around the world that just have different values that go against our free expression values and want us to crack down and ban way more stuff than I think a lot of people would believe would be the right thing to do. To have those governments be able to exert the power of saying they’re going to throw you in prison – that’s a lot of force. I think this is one of the things that the US government is probably going to need to help defend the American tech companies abroad.”
Paksitan has been known for harboring a vast number of global terrorists as well as a number of terror outfits operating openly in the country. It also has extremely strong blasphemy laws that are many times misused to target individuals of different faiths or as a very strong blackmailing tool by powerful authorities.
There is also a very strong anti West, anti Jewish stance amongst the public and Western companies and businesses are considered legitimate targets by many of its radicalized populace.
While Zuckerberg has been heavily criticized in the past for pushing agendas on his platform, he has been in hot water with a number of governments over such issues. He has also encountered heavy criticism for the same in the United States, limiting free speech of particular streams while amplifying another. However blasphemy executions are a different criteria all together, and the prospect of those has definitely spooked the billionaire Meta CEO.
