Pakistanis snub Facebook with own Muslim version

May 29, 2010 - Shafqat Ali |

Islamabad

A group of Pakistani IT professionals have launched a new social networking website, Millatfacebook, to counter Facebook that organised a blasphemous competition of drawing Prophet Mohammed’s caricatures.
The founders of the Millatfacebook hope it will fetch the attention of 1.6 billion Muslims worldwide and they will be connected online. A group of six young IT professionals from Lahore launched www.millatfacebook.com on Tuesday for Muslims to interact online and protest against blasphemy. Dubbed MFB, after Facebook’s moniker FB, its founder says professionals are working around the clock to offer features similar to those pioneered by the wildly popular California-based prototype. “We want to tell Facebook people if they mess with us they have to face the consequences,” said Usman Zaheer, the 24-year-old chief operating officer of the software house that hosts the new site. “If someone commits blasphemy against our Prophet then we will become his competitor and give him immense business loss,” he said.
Hundreds of Pakistanis demonstrated against the blasphemous competition by Facebook and the government ultimately banned the website. YouTube was also blocked. The sites have been restored but scores of links remain inaccessible.

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