Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg Reveals Close Call with Death Sentence in Pakistan Over Facebook Post

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg recently revealed in an interview with podcast host Joe Rogan that he received death threats in Pakistan following a legal battle over a controversial drawing of Prophet Mohammed posted on Facebook.

Zuckerberg explained that the incident occurred when someone shared a drawing of Prophet Mohammed on Facebook. This led to a legal case in Pakistan, where the act was seen as blasphemy, triggering a lawsuit and criminal proceedings against him. He said, "There are laws in different countries that we disagree with. For example, someone tried to get me sentenced to death in Pakistan because of that post."

The incident caused significant safety concerns for Zuckerberg. He shared, “It was a little bit disconcerting. It’s not great if you’re flying over that region, you don’t want your plane to go down above Pakistan, if that thing goes through.”

Zuckerberg emphasized the difficulty of balancing free expression with laws in different countries. He highlighted how certain laws conflict with the values of free speech that are central to platforms like Facebook. He mentioned, "There are places around the world that just have different values and want us to ban more content than I think a lot of people would agree with."

He also pointed out the pressure on global tech platforms to comply with stricter content regulations. Zuckerberg noted, "To have those governments be able to throw you in prison is a lot of power. The US government probably needs to defend American tech companies abroad."

In a related move, Zuckerberg announced that Meta would replace its fact-checking system on Facebook and Instagram with a new "community notes" model. He said the previous system resulted in too much censorship and bias, which he believed led to "too many mistakes."