by Yaser Awan May 19, 10, 10:07 PM

After the southpark episode censoring, shout out by freedom of speech bandwagon and protest by people against Draw Muhammad day, government of Pakistan has banned Facebook in Pakistan (started from banning specific pages and then completely banned the site due to court orders). Where many people still can figure out how to use Facebook even after ban (mainly 3-4 different methods), many are clueless. Lets for a moment not discuss whats right or wrong, lets speculate what kind of impact this decision will have on usage of other social networks and services. 

1- With Myspace already reforming its privacy settings by making them more simple yet giving more control to the user they could have been a bigger candidate to attract traffic but since they are not that much known in Pakistan its less likely they will get any benefit from this situation. 

2- Nobody here remembers Orkut and it seems its bound to remain same.

3- Twitter is a service which is likely to get a small chunk of the user base. Most of the users who were already on twitter but couldn't find themselves fitting into the 140 character space could turn towards it. 

4- Google Buzz is most likely to get a bigger portion of the interactive space as its more closer to the Pakistani audience. Its a fact that majority of Buzz interactions are aggregated from different Social Networks but this could change as Buzz is closest to your inbox and Pakistanis could turn towards it to satisfy their Online Social Interaction needs. 

5- There is also a possibility that some local social network like Paki.com or stop.pk emerges as a winner but it seems probable only if there is a moment to promote a local alternative of Facebook. 

6- Lastly there could be a posibility that an international Muslim Social network like Muxlim could attract muslims around globe but that's tide to campaigning as well. 

All the speculations are totally dependant on how long this ban is going to last and how long the alternatives will keep on working, only the time will tell.