Facebook Launches a Crackdown Against Pakistani Pages

Facebook recently launched a crackdown on Pakistani pages — with millions of likes — and went ahead and unpublished (deleted) them, we have checked with various Facebook admins who lost their pages during past few weeks.

All these pages, which number in dozens, were mostly removed on copyright violations according to communication received from Facebook.

However, some believe that the Kashmir element could also be behind the removal of such pages.

It may be recalled that Facebook didn’t like the way Pakistanis (and other nationals) were sharing pictures of Kashmiri freedom fighters. Based on complaints from India, Facebook removed all such posts while terming them against their TOS (terms of service).

Support for Kashmir could be a reason for removal of Pakistani Facbeook pages

However, there are others who think that Facebook, just recently, became active in how it deals with copyright claims and any violations are dealt with strictly; mostly by removal of the pages regardless of how big (in terms of following) or how old these page were.

It maybe recalled that Facebook had been very lenient on copyright violations. It used to just inform the admins of any reported violations or at most deleted the reported posts.

This is why there was a trend of copying content on Facebook and every other page used to post similar images or videos.

Almost every Facebook page admin used to copy stuff from other pages and post the same on their own pages with or without credits.

However, now the situation has changed and such pages — with any copyright violations — are removed at once without even warnings. Moreover, any appeals are not entertained and Facebook replies all complaints with a rejection and a note that the decision is final.

Not to mention, not all page admins were violating the copyrights but were penalized. This includes admins who had spends thousands of dollars on their pages, for promoting content and buying likes. But all that has been ruined for them now.

There are people who are relating this crackdown to Google’s disabling of Pakistani adsense accounts in bulk back in 2011.

While there are admins who are disgruntled with the development, there are others (mainly users) who are contended with the move as it will mean lesser (duplicate) content.

Need to add something to the story, or if your page was deleted? Share in below comments!

Tech and telecom reporter for over 15 years


  • Interesting development for content publishers. Can you please name a few pages which have been deleted? Would also like to see the click baiting links to be deleted but since they are mostly sponsored don’t really see that happening.

    • a great page like wonder.pakistan which had millions of likes and same amount of followers was deleted by Facebook. They have announced their account deletion by Facebook on Instagram. So this is not a clickbait article. It really is happening.

      • Sad to know.
        BTW I just expressed a desire to see the click baiting links being deleted by FB although I know they wont be deleted since they are using FB advertising.

    • i have a page Pakistani Log 7 lakh likes i did not share any links or did not post any video just upload pictures . and never use this page for trafic but facebook unpublish it . i pay for likes 700 $ also to facebook. facebook is scamer

    • Since pages are removed, there’s no URL available.

      But let me compile a list for the sake of information.

      • My friends page was shut down recently.. having more than 100,000 likes.. I think it’s for the best. People steal other people’s work and do not even consider it stealing. Being in a creative field myself.. I can relate to it quite easily..

    • wonderful.pakistan page which had millions of likes was deleted too. They announced their deletion on their instagram account.

  • Mine 2 pages are deleted. 1 month ago having 1.1m likes and 2nd on 12 august having 502k likes. reasons of unpublished pages both are different. 1.1m page unpublished becoz of renamed page and its true I renamed my page 1 year ago and 502k likes page unpublished becoz of spamming..

  • Lesson: Dont put your eggs in someone else’s basket. Cant be put more aptly than that.

  • Witribe announced 5mbps package, propakistani sleeping or they publish news that is useless. ;)

  • More than 60% Pakistani Indian Bangladeshi pages are useless pages with purpose of earning/spam marketing/spamming. Spreads copyright, wrong news information with lines such as “like to banta hay, wo kamina he hoga jo is shandar tasvir ko share na karay, Nabi Paak SAW kay baal mubarak teer kay nishan say page Like per click karain, falanay nay falanay ko kia keh dia jaan ker ap heran reh jain gay click karain”

    Very low quality pages. If they are wiped then Facebook will become a safe, neat, informative place for our users.

  • I am one such victim. I had started a tourism page called “Wonderful Pakistan” in 2012 where I used to upload mostly my own tour-adventure photos and seeing page’s popularity other nature enthusiasts also started sending their tour-pictures to be featured on that page which were uploaded with proper credits for free. I spent a few thousand dollars too to promote that page in other countries like UK, US etc to give tourism in Pakistan a buzz. Years of consistant work lead this page to have a good fan following and on July 29, 2016 it had 1.22M likes, and people were sending about 100+ pics daily to be featured on that page.

    I wasn’t organizing tours, but I was helping many people (even from other countries) on planning their tours to various places in Pakistan.

    Officials from PSO – Pakistan State Oil even contacted me to join hands to promote tourism in Pakistan on a greater scale.

    And all of a sudden, Facebook unpublished that page saying “page violate one or more page terms”. I contacted Facebook, and they denied to restore that page saying this page “mislead people”. No idea what do they mean by “this page mislead people”. Anyhow, then I thought to ask for help from tech experts from our country, I can understand that it was beyond their ability to practically help me in this however, UrduPoint’s founder did whatever he could as he had a better support from Facebook. I provided him every proof (amount I spent, campaign details etc) that lead this page to be what it is today, he opened that case with Facebook, and Facebook refused to restore the page without any explanation.

    Till today, page is unpublished. I announced it on Instagram too where many were as shocked as me.

    I can understand that Facebook needs to take actions to keep Facebook spam free, but what happened in my case is something I am not able to understand.

    Additionally, since the page is unpublished and only the admin can see it, I can show the page’s timeline or whatever one needs to see in case someone wants to help me in this case.

  • i think majority of indian faggots who report every Pakistani page on facebook is the possible reason. Banning will just give indian a chance to shut us up So i think we should fight back and hit them harder.

    • They are more than a billion, that is why Amitab is world’s best actor (lol) and Salman Khan is so famous.

  • Pls share the pages and their admins, US based Fair & freedom NGO’s can sue Facebook in no time

  • mera bhi pak top page 9th june 2016 ko remove krdiya..700k likes the :/
    restore krne ka koi tarika ?

  • With Twitter cracking a broadcast deal with NFL to live stream weekend games next season. It was only matter of time before PHASEBOOK followed suit. I think the copy right violations claim is in line with it going for a deal with all major leagues to have their LIVE broadcasts on FB in near future.


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