Facebook should respect the religious sentiments

The Issue

Is the "Everybody Draw Mohammed Day!" campaign on Facebook a celebration of freedom of speech, or a thinly-veiled attempt to offend Muslims? Whatever your take, the latest Facebook fracas certainly has generated a firestorm of controversy and quickly grown into an international incident. Pakistan's government ordered Internet service providers to block Facebook on Wednesday amid anger over a page that encourages users to post images of Islam's Prophet Muhammad.

Facebook said Wednesday it is investigating.

"While the content does not violate our terms, we do understand it may not be legal in some countries," the company said in a statement. "In cases like this, the approach is sometimes to restrict certain content from being shown in specific countries."

Certainly, this latest controversy between the Islam and the Western philosophy of free speech won't be the last. but there is a strong need to draw a line between free speech and offending others specially deliberately targeting religious sentiments.

The websites like facebook which has user base of all religions, countries and origin have increased responsibility of providing equal rights to all its users and look after their believes responsibly. We all should encourage facebook to redefine its policy where freedom of speech should have limitation so that no single user can hurt the feelings of billions.

We all must write to Facebook so that it could ensure "The rapid spread of technology should not contribute to global clash of cultures and religions".

This petition had 32 supporters

The Issue

Is the "Everybody Draw Mohammed Day!" campaign on Facebook a celebration of freedom of speech, or a thinly-veiled attempt to offend Muslims? Whatever your take, the latest Facebook fracas certainly has generated a firestorm of controversy and quickly grown into an international incident. Pakistan's government ordered Internet service providers to block Facebook on Wednesday amid anger over a page that encourages users to post images of Islam's Prophet Muhammad.

Facebook said Wednesday it is investigating.

"While the content does not violate our terms, we do understand it may not be legal in some countries," the company said in a statement. "In cases like this, the approach is sometimes to restrict certain content from being shown in specific countries."

Certainly, this latest controversy between the Islam and the Western philosophy of free speech won't be the last. but there is a strong need to draw a line between free speech and offending others specially deliberately targeting religious sentiments.

The websites like facebook which has user base of all religions, countries and origin have increased responsibility of providing equal rights to all its users and look after their believes responsibly. We all should encourage facebook to redefine its policy where freedom of speech should have limitation so that no single user can hurt the feelings of billions.

We all must write to Facebook so that it could ensure "The rapid spread of technology should not contribute to global clash of cultures and religions".

The Decision Makers

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Petition created on May 19, 2010