 "imran khan")
Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan called on Facebook to ban Islamophobic content on its platform, warning of a spike in radicalisation amongst Muslims, hours after he hit out at the French president for "attacking Islam".
Pakistan summoned the French ambassador in Islamabad as anger spread on Monday over President Emmanuel Macron's reaction to the murder last week of a French teacher by an Islamist.
Khan, in an open letter posted on Twitter on Sunday, said "growing Islamophobia" was encouraging extremism and violence worldwide, especially through social media platforms.
“I would ask you to place a similar ban on Islamophobia and hate against Islam on Facebook that you have put in place for the Holocaust," Khan said.
“One cannot send a message that while hate messages against some are unacceptable, these are acceptable against others," Khan said, adding such a stance was "reflective of prejudice and bias that will encourage further radicalisation}.
In response, a Facebook spokeswoman told Reuters the company opposed all forms of hate and did not allow attacks based on race, ethnicity, national origin or religion.
"We'll remove this hate speech as soon as we become aware of it," the spokeswoman said in a statement, adding that Facebook had "more work to do".
Facebook's last transparency report for the six months to December 2019, showed that Pakistan was the source of the second highest number of requests to curb content after Russia.
A source with direct knowledge of the issue at Facebook told Reuters that the most requests for the removal of content relating to Islam came from Pakistan, exceeding other Muslim-majority countries.
Facebook traditionally complies, as not doing so would be to break Pakistan’s laws, the source said, adding that authorities would often send dozens of links at a time and demand they be taken down.
