{"id":85963,"date":"2015-01-27T06:06:56","date_gmt":"2015-01-27T06:06:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/4cd.e16.myftpupload.com\/?p=85963"},"modified":"2015-01-26T21:17:43","modified_gmt":"2015-01-26T21:17:43","slug":"facebook-blocks-pages-insulting-prophet-mohammed-turkey","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/?p=85963","title":{"rendered":"Facebook blocks pages insulting Prophet Mohammed in Turkey"},"content":{"rendered":"

Facebook has blocked an unspecified number of pages that featured content allegedly insulting the Prophet Mohammed on Monday, following an order from a local court in Turkey, Mashable<\/em>has learned.<\/p>\n

On Sunday, a local court in Ankara, Turkey, threatened to block Facebook entirely if the social network didn’t comply with the order.<\/p>\n

But Facebook complied less than 24 hours later and blocked the content for Turkish users, according to a source familiar with the matter who spoke to Mashable<\/em> on the condition of anonymity.<\/p>\n

This is just the latest example of Turkey ramping up its online censorship efforts over the past few weeks.<\/span><\/p>\n

The government has repeatedly threatened to block both Facebook and Twitter if the companies didn’t comply with orders to block specific content.<\/p>\n

On Jan. 15, Turkish officials demanded that Twitter block the entire account of a local newspaper that published leaked documents relating to a military raid on a Turkish Intelligence Agency trucks convoy that was traveling to Syria in January 2014.<\/p>\n

Twitter didn’t ban the entire account, but rather “the small number of tweets that discussed the national security issue referenced in the order,” Twitter spokesperson Nu Wexler said at the time.<\/p>\n

Also, on Jan. 14, a court ordered the country’s Telecommunications Directorate (T\u0130B) to ban access to websites showing Charlie Hebdo<\/em>‘s front cover. Many cartoons in the satirical French magazine depict the Prophet Mohammed in a negative light.<\/p>\n

Turkey is No. 2 on the list of countries where Facebook blocks the most content, according to the company’s most recent transparency report.<\/p>\n

The blocking of these Facebook pages comes just a couple of weeks after Mark Zuckerbergvowed to keep Facebook a place where people can speak freely.<\/p>\n

“Facebook has always been a place where people across the world share their views and ideas,” Zuckerberg wrote in a Facebook post following the attack at Charlie Hebdo<\/em>‘s Paris headquarters. In the same post, Zuckerberg hinted that at times, the social network will have to cave to government requests.<\/p>\n

“We follow the laws in each country, but we never let one country or group of people dictate what people can share across the world,”<\/span> he added.<\/p>\n

The blocking of these allegedly offensive pages, “provides cover for the government’s overall narrative that social media is a ‘menace to society’ and needs to be brought under control,” Adrian Shahbaz, a researcher at Internet Freedom watchdog Freedom House, told Mashable<\/em>.<\/p>\n

“While the government engages in clear political censorship to prevent the spread of damaging leaks, it can divert attention away by concentrating on the cartoons.”<\/p>\n

Turkey completely blocked access to Twitter and YouTube last year after leaks of recordings related to a potential military operation in Syria. Twitter’s block was lifted after two weeks, while YouTube remained blocked for 67 days.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Source:\u00a0mashable.com<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Facebook has blocked an unspecified number of pages that featured content allegedly insulting the Prophet Mohammed on Monday, following an order from a local court in Turkey, Mashablehas learned. On Sunday, a local court in Ankara, Turkey, threatened to block Facebook entirely if the social network didn’t comply with the order. But Facebook complied less […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[18,14],"class_list":["post-85963","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","tag-dr-akwasi-osei","tag-papa-owusu-ankomah"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85963","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=85963"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85963\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=85963"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=85963"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=85963"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}