MillatFacebook: Pakistan Social Network in Need of Monetary Contribution

Pakistan's version of Facebook, called MillatFacebook seems to be in dire straits financially as evident from the emails send out to their members. Recently, the Express Tribune reported that MFB (MillatFacebook) had sent out emails back in December to the members asking for contributing money to pay for their US based servers.

The email quoted that the cost of maintaining a social network is very high and that the site had fallen short of paying for the servers by around $581 that month. The email quoted that the site had already paid in thousands for the servers based in the US. The email appealed to the members to contribute, so as to keep the site afloat.

Umar Zaheer, Chief Operating Officer of MFB had confessed to newspapers that the appeal had not found much response. MFB has more than four lakh members and has a Facebook account too, which is still the popular social networking site for the people of Pakistan. This increased reliance is due to the shrinking space for effective public expression.

The MFB was launched in 2010 after Lahore High Court had banned Facebook in Pakistan. This followed the ‘Everybody Draw Mohammad day' competition that some Facebook members had started. MillatFacebook was launched as an alternative to Facebook thinking that the ban would last longer. However, by the end of the month, the ban of Facebook was lifted.

According to the Express Tribune citing data from TrafficSpy.com, the MFB gets only around two visitors per day on an average currently.