FACEBOOK enforced Islamic blasphemy laws over a Politicalite post about Homophobia in Islam and banned our editor for 30 days for so-called ‘Hate Speech.’
The social media network was unhappy with a post that showed a Muslim woman in a rainbow hijab holding a sign that said ‘Allah Loves Equality.’
FB has given me a 30 day ban and threatened to unpublish a news outlets page over this image. So I, a gay man can’t sarcastically mock the abysmal gay rights in the Islamic religion and in Islamic countries? @Facebook. Putting Blasphemy laws ABOVE freedom of speech. ? @getongab pic.twitter.com/FJWGojSY7c
— Jordan James (@politicalite) September 22, 2018
The post had the headline “Ok Hun… with a sarcastic rolling eye emoji” Hours later Politicalite was told to unplublish our page and review the “offensive” content.
Facebook categorized the post as “Hate Speech” but how can this be? Our Editor is a gay man who has had first-hand experience of Muslim Homophobia and knows countless Muslim men who are forced to lead double lives due to their sexuality.
Radical Islamists also use Allah’s name, and threaten gay men. Islamic countries also have some of the worst records in the world for Gay Rights.
When the US supreme court ruled in favour of same-sex marriage in 2016, the White House welcomed it with rainbow-coloured lights and many people celebrated by adding a rainbow tint to their Facebook profile, but for authorities in Saudi Arabia, this was cause for alarm rather than celebration.
The Guardian reported that the first casualty was the privately run Talaee Al-Noor school in Riyadh which happened to have a rooftop parapet painted with rainbow stripes. According to the kingdom’s religious police, the school was fined 100,000 riyals ($26,650) for displaying “the emblem of the homosexuals” on its building, one of its administrators was jailed and the offending parapet was swiftly repainted to match a blue rainbow-free sky.
If we are not able to criticise religion and call out the Islamic communities failure to tackle homophobia, isn’t Facebook just as guilty as the censors in Saudi Arabia?
