ISLAMABAD: Social media giant Facebook has refused to comply with Pakistan’s request to link all Facebook accounts with phone numbers, it was reported on Saturday.
Pakistan had made the request when Facebook Vice President Joel Kaplan met with Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan last week. The purpose of the request was to curb the usage of fake profiles to post blasphemous content and make it easy for authorities to trace users.
However, in an e-mail, Facebook has confirmed that it has decided to not comply with the request to continue protecting its customers’ rights. The policy for creating new accounts would remain unchanged, Facebook added.
It also confirmed that the request had been made by Pakistani authorities to deal with the menace of fake profiles.
Regarding the important and constructive meeting, the Facebook official stated that the VP discussed Facebook’s concerns regarding recent court decisions and clarified that the group follows a strictly legal process against the government’s request for ban on any type of material.
Since, February 2017, 137 blasphemous links have been blocked by the Facebook administration for viewership in Pakistan.
Facebook was also asked to help Law Enforcement Agencies (LEAs) in the country by providing them with data that they asked for.
Facebook, in response, said that it received around 1,000 requests in 2016 from Pakistan and about 70 per cent of them had been complied with. The Facebook administration reiterated that it will continue to support such requests.