'I was not that worried...': Mark Zuckerberg says he was almost sentenced to death in Pakistan

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg recently said that he was “almost sentenced to death for blasphemy in Pakistan", raising the ongoing legal hurdles his company faces in the country due to a lawsuit over alleged blasphemous content on Facebook. He was speaking at a Joe Rogan podcast. The lawsuit accused Facebook of hosting content that violates Pakistan’s strict blasphemy laws which imposes severe fines for acts considered offensive to religious beliefs.

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What Mark Zuckerberg said

Mark Zuckerberg said that Meta is committed to balancing free expression with respect for local regulations and cultural values in specific countries. “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 stated “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,” Zuckerberg added.



Mark Zuckerberg also reflected on the increasing pressure on tech companies from stricter content regulation.

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He said, “The point is, there are places around the world that just have different values that go against our free expression values and want us to crack down and ban way more stuff than I think a lot of people would believe would be the right thing to do. To have those governments be able to exert the power of saying they’re going to throw you in prison – that’s a lot of force. I think this is one of the things that the US government is probably going to need to help defend the American tech companies abroad."

Netizens quickly reacted to Mark Zuckerberg's comment with one of them saying, "wow. And people complain that Pakistan is not influential." (sic). Most users mocked at Pakistan on Meta boss' comment.

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"Zuck should speak to Salman Rushdie one of these days," wrote another. Another one quipped, "Pakistan is created by British and aided by US." (sic)

"Dar ka mahol hai Fat gayi bechare ki," wrote another user.

On January 7, Meta announced to get rid of fact-checking systems on Facebook and Instagram with a "community notes" model, similar to Elon Musk's X. Zuckerberg said that Meta's fact-checking had resulted in "too many mistakes and too much censorship" and was "too politically biased."