What do you do when Facebook spreads blasphemy? You make your own Facebook.
The Times of India is reporting that people in Pakistan of the Muslim faith are urging their fellow Muslims to use Millat Facebook. The reason being that Facebook is allegedly involved in blasphemy of the Holy Prophet (i.e. Muhammad).
Muslim leaders held a round table conference titled, “Blasphemy of Facebook and the Role of Muslim Youth on Social Media,” hosted by Millat Facebook. They slammed those in Pakistan who were advocating the abolishment or amendment to the current blasphemy laws.
The owners of Millat Facebook said that their site had seen a large amount of success since launching in May 2010. The site has suffered some setbacks, however, with U.S. and Pakistani authorities taking down its hosting. They said that U.S. officials had attacked them by threatening their hosts in the U.S. and Europe within a few months of opening.
What hurt them more, however, was that Pakistan’s national ISP refused to host the site. They also refused to explain their denial in writing.
He ended the talk by saying that Jewish and Christian groups had organized attacks on the Web site. The attackers invited people from all over the world to attack the “Muslim’s alternative to Facebook.” The team, however, stopped the attacks from ever happening.
It’s great to create social networking sites around particular religions so as not to offend people, but I don’t think the problem is with the site itself. If you look at the Web site, it’s an obvious theft of Facebook’s UI and design. They may want to change that to avoid any further legal troubles.