A group of six young IT professionals from Lahore backed by the Judicial Activision Panel (JAP), a public interest litigation firm, launched Pakistan’s first social networking site "millatfacebook" (www.millatfacebook.com) on Tuesday, 25th of May 2010, with the aim of connecting 1.6 billion Muslims around the globe. The launching ceremony was held at the Lahore High Court Bar Association where Mian Abdul Qudus participated as the chief guest.

The venture came about after Pakistani court ordered banning of Facebook until May 31, taking offence over Facebook’s virtual contest for Prophet Mohammad’s drawings, considering the caricatures as blasphemous and sacrilegious.

"Millat", an Urdu word used by Muslims to refer to their nation, Millatfacebook or simply MFB is, as stated in their website, "A site for Muslims by Muslims where sweet people of other religions are also welcome!" . The site offers same features such as email, chat, photos and videos. It also includes a discussion board facility and a "wall" for comments. It has currently attracted more than 4,000 members in a span of 3 days, has more than 1,000 photos, 8 blogs and 23 polls.

While some claim Millatfacebook is a a clone and a rip-off of Facebook, there are some features that makes it different, like the "featured members" and the "top rated members" tab- a similar feature, unfortunately, from a website, Pakistan abandoned years before called "Orkut". There is also an application called Photo Battle where random photos uploaded by members are viewed by other members and they decide which ones they like. Some games are however not yet integrated into the site and has left some members missing the popular games like "cafe world" in Facebook.

It should also be noted that unlike facebook or other professional social networking sites, the terms of use of Millatfacebook consists only of the following:

Only Terms of using this website are:

1) You must respect Humanity
2) You must respect Believes of all People
3) No Disrespect to anyone

Usman Zaheer, the chief operating officer of the software house that hosts Millatfacebook says that the site has already attracted members living in Britain, Bulgaria, Canada, China, Russia , the United Arab Emirates and the United States. He is pleased with their handiwork and they are working round the clock to offer features similar to Facebook.

Resources:
Google News: Pakistanis create rival Muslim Facebook by Waqar Hussain
Daily Times: JAP launches Millatfacebook
The Express Tribune: Millat Facebook review:thumbsdown