Websites blocked in Pakistan

This is a list of websites blocked in Pakistan. Every country has its own restrictions on the Internet. In Pakistan, the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) is a government body that is responsible for controlling and maintaining all the communication technologies in the country including Internet. PTA, jointly with the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) under the direction of the government, the Supreme Court of Pakistan, and the Ministry of Information Technology (MoIT), blocks URLs, domain names, and IP addresses of websites and webpages containing child pornography, advocacy of drug abuse and drug production instructions, suicide advocacy or any information on suicide methods, blasphemy, or any information which have been prohibited for distribution in Pakistan by court decision.

On 22 February 2008, PTA attempted to block regional access to YouTube following a government order. The attempt inadvertently caused a worldwide YouTube blackout that took 20 hours to correct.[1][2][3][4] Four days later, PTA lifted the ban after YouTube removed controversial religious comments made by a Dutch Member of Parliament[5] concerning Islam.[6] In May 2010, the PTA ordered ISPs to block Facebook, YouTube, and certain Flickr and Wikipedia pages after a Facebook page entitled "Post Drawings of the Prophet Mohammad Day" was created.[7] The ban was ordered as a result of the Islamic Lawyers Association’s request for a court injunction to ban Facebook, while the other websites were later banned because of "objectionable material".[4][8][9][10]

In September 2012, after the video of Innocence of Muslims was posted on YouTube and caused widespread protests, the government requested that YouTube remove the video. When YouTube refused to do so, it was banned and blocked again in the entire country. After a few months some religious people began protesting against the adult and sexual contents on the Internet. At first the government tried to settle them down but the protests grew heavier all over Pakistan especially among the young college and university students. Because of that, PTA again implemented a web filtering system, developed in China, all over Pakistan's Internet architecture and many websites were blocked even filtering the search results from the search engines. In January 2016, Pakistan reversed its block on YouTube, though allowing the PTA to block specific offending material.[11]

See also

References

Page text.[12]

  1. ↑ Ribeiro, John (25 February 2008). "Pakistan causes worldwide YouTube blackout". Macworld UK.
  2. ↑ Graham, Stephen (26 February 2008). "Pakistan Lifts YouTube Ban". The Huffington Post.
  3. ↑ "TWA Internet Backbone Blocks Only Blasphemous Video URL". Don’t Block the Blog. 24 February 2008.
  4. 1 2 "Pakistan". OpenNet Initiative.
  5. ↑ "Pakistan Drops YouTube Ban". CBS News/AP. 25 February 2008.
  6. ↑ Sandoval, Greg (26 February 2008). "Pakistan welcomes back YouTube". CNET News Blogs.
  7. ↑ Gillani, Waqar (19 May 2010). "Pakistan: Court Blocks Facebook". The New York Times.
  8. ↑ Jeewanjee, Zainab (20 May 2010). "Facebook Banned in Pakistan—May 2010". World Affairs Blog Network.
  9. ↑ Walsh, Declan (31 May 2010). "Pakistan Lifts Facebook Ban but 'Blasphemous' Pages Stay Hidden". The Guardian.
  10. ↑ Shahzad, Asif (25 June 2010). "Internet Censorship in Pakistan: Watching Google for Blasphemy". Associated Press.
  11. ↑ Cuthbertson, Anthony (19 January 2016). "Pakistan Lifts Three-Year YouTube Ban with Censor-Friendly Version". Newsweek. Retrieved 22 January 2016.
  12. ↑ Pakistan blocks YouTube for blasphemous content, Official Says.

External links

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