Soul Sisters' Kanwal Ahmed makes new community after Facebook briefly deletes group

Soul Sisters Pakistan founder Kanwal Ahmed has announced the creation of a new community after the women only group was deleted by Facebook for a short period of time.

Founded in 2013, the group serves as a support collective for Pakistani women, where they discuss taboo topics and problems faced by the female population in Pakistan’s society.

The founder of the group, Kanwal Ahmed, is a women’s rights activist, entrepreneur and host of the talk show Conservations with Kanwal.

Shortly after the group came back on Friday, she said in a post on the Meta platform: “Facebook tried to shut Soul Sisters Pakistan down for TWO whole days. And the last two days have been a NIGHTMARE for ALL of us.”

“This community I poured my heart, soul, sweat and blood in - has became family to 315000 women for 11 years - and has been on the forefront of women’s issues for the last decade. We have helped women get out of bad situations, advocated for each other, helped establish small businesses, raised millions for verified NGOs and gave women the first of its kind SAFE space to thrive in Pakistan,” she added.

In order to protect the collective from social media censorship in future, Kanwal announced the making of a new women only community by the name of “Hey Soulies” on Beehiiv.

“The name of our NEW COMPANY is 'Hey Soulie', inspired by the nickname we have for each other. Please sign up here ASAP so I never lose you again,” she said on the Facebook post.

"The time to build a zone free from the shady policies of social media companies is NOW," she added.

Women used to share information about sex, divorce, and domestic violence on the group, considering that such topics are majorly disregarded as inappropriate to discuss publicly in the country.

After warning of an unspecified “intellectual property violation” linked to a post, Facebook took the step of deleting the group late on Wednesday, according to Kanwal.

"They didn't even show which post it was," said Ahmed, who was selected as a community leader by Facebook in 2018 due to the group's success.

Ranging from legal advice to emotional support regarding topics that might otherwise have drawn trolling and hate if posted publicly, the group let members to offer each other informal help.

Emphasising on the unfair means of social media community guidelines, digital rights researcher Shmyla Khan said: "The suspension of Soul Sisters Pakistan speaks to the arbitrary and non-transparent ways in which social media platforms operate and subtle ways in which community guidelines of these platforms can work against users in the Global South.”

According to UN Women, more than 80% of women in Pakistan have reported being harassed in public places in 2020. Additionally, according to a 2017-2018 health ministry survey, around a quarter of women have experienced physical or emotional violence from their husband or partner.

"I feel lost without the group," said Shiza, who only gave her first name, told AFP. "This is where I used to go when life seemed too difficult to bear."

Online censorship have seen a rise in Pakistan in recent months.

Shortly after the national election in February, which was marred by rigging allegations, social media platform X has been disrupted consistently by the government.

In addition, TikTok has twice been banned by the telecommunications authorities over "inappropriate content".

According to the latest data from TikTok, more than 18 million videos were removed between October and December. Whereas, YouTube was banned between 2012 and 2016 over content deemed blasphemous.