 "Mark Zuckerberg. Reuters file")
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerburg has claimed that he was “almost sentenced to death” in Pakistan over blasphemy. Talking in Joe Rogan’s podcast, Zuckerburg said that his company currently faces many legal challenges in Pakistan over allegations that Facebook hosted alleged blasphemous content.
“There are laws in different countries that we disagree with. For example, there was a point at which someone was trying to get me sentenced to death in Pakistan because someone on Facebook had a picture where they had a drawing of Prophet Mohammed, and someone said, ‘That’s blasphemy in our culture.’ They sued me and opened this criminal proceeding,” he said.
The lawsuit claims that Facebook allowed content that violates Pakistan’s strict blasphemy laws, which enforce harsh penalties for religious offences. Zuckerberg addressed the matter, reiterating Meta’s efforts to navigate the balance between free expression and compliance with local laws and cultural norms.
He added, “I don’t know exactly where it went because I’m just not planning to go to Pakistan, so I was not that worried about it.”
The Facebook chief noted that many places around the world have different values and laws which safeguard people from content they think is harmful and want to crack down on or ban things.
Quick Reads
View All“To have those governments exert that kind of power is a lot of force. This is one of the things that the US government is probably going to need to help defend American tech companies abroad,” he said.