Pakistan's Internet censorship
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Prometheus
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Internet censorship
The furore over the websites blocked last week by the Pakistan Telecommunications Authority on the instructions of the Lahore High Court refuses to die down, and for good reason. At least 800 web pages and URLs have so far been blocked for Pakistan’s Internet users in an effort to restrict access to material considered blasphemous. The number may grow. However, apart from the Facebook link that called for the drawing of the Prophet (PBUH) — and which has now been removed — we have been given no explanation as to what exactly this objectionable material is.
There are a number of points to ponder. First, the LHC order referred to the caricatures’ site. On whose authority has access to the other sites been limited? The PTA may be guilty of overstepping its authority by extending the scope of the court’s order to apply the directive to websites of its own choosing. Second, given the other issues confronting Pakistan, there is the possibility that the accusation of ‘blasphemy’ is being used to cover up the attempt to suppress political criticism. Sites such as Facebook and YouTube have become a prominent tool for political activism and criticism. Third, blocking these sites constitutes outright censorship and a serious transgression of the individual’s right to access information of his or her choice on the Internet.
Pakistan cannot police the world. Blocking websites achieves nothing and only invites derision from the global community besides encouraging mischievous elements to undertake similarly offensive exercises in order to provoke a reaction. In shutting off access to these sites, the state is denying its citizens access to information — interestingly, one of the blocked pages is a Wikipedia discussion on the freedom of speech versus blasphemy. Lastly, bans like this simply do not work.
The only way to comprehensively control access to sections of the Internet is to stop Internet facilities altogether in the country. A number of ways to circumvent the blocked material are being communicated to Internet users who are thus able to access the website of their choice. Clearly, the PTA has failed to achieve its goals and has only been criticised for its arbitrary ways. It must be made to respect the right to information and restore the blocked websites immediately, leaving Internet users to decide for themselves what is or is not offensive.
There will always be a handful of people who will turn violent and shun a measured response to crass exercises such as the drawing event. But the answer is not to resort to practices that drag the country further back into the dark ages.
DAWN.COM | Editorial | Internet censorship
The furore over the websites blocked last week by the Pakistan Telecommunications Authority on the instructions of the Lahore High Court refuses to die down, and for good reason. At least 800 web pages and URLs have so far been blocked for Pakistan’s Internet users in an effort to restrict access to material considered blasphemous. The number may grow. However, apart from the Facebook link that called for the drawing of the Prophet (PBUH) — and which has now been removed — we have been given no explanation as to what exactly this objectionable material is.
There are a number of points to ponder. First, the LHC order referred to the caricatures’ site. On whose authority has access to the other sites been limited? The PTA may be guilty of overstepping its authority by extending the scope of the court’s order to apply the directive to websites of its own choosing. Second, given the other issues confronting Pakistan, there is the possibility that the accusation of ‘blasphemy’ is being used to cover up the attempt to suppress political criticism. Sites such as Facebook and YouTube have become a prominent tool for political activism and criticism. Third, blocking these sites constitutes outright censorship and a serious transgression of the individual’s right to access information of his or her choice on the Internet.
Pakistan cannot police the world. Blocking websites achieves nothing and only invites derision from the global community besides encouraging mischievous elements to undertake similarly offensive exercises in order to provoke a reaction. In shutting off access to these sites, the state is denying its citizens access to information — interestingly, one of the blocked pages is a Wikipedia discussion on the freedom of speech versus blasphemy. Lastly, bans like this simply do not work.
The only way to comprehensively control access to sections of the Internet is to stop Internet facilities altogether in the country. A number of ways to circumvent the blocked material are being communicated to Internet users who are thus able to access the website of their choice. Clearly, the PTA has failed to achieve its goals and has only been criticised for its arbitrary ways. It must be made to respect the right to information and restore the blocked websites immediately, leaving Internet users to decide for themselves what is or is not offensive.
There will always be a handful of people who will turn violent and shun a measured response to crass exercises such as the drawing event. But the answer is not to resort to practices that drag the country further back into the dark ages.
DAWN.COM | Editorial | Internet censorship
sparklingway
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Freekin :- Just a reminder to those uneducated in history.
The man he's praising Sultan Abdul Hamid, he is guilty of committing the Hamidian Massacre, the precursor to the Armenian Genocide which resulted in the massacre of an estimated 100,000 to 300,000 Armenians
I've heard him saying a couple of times before that "Musalmaanon ney kisi ka genocide nahin kuya" for he has to prepare for any questions regarding the establishment of a caliphate for the Ottomans are guilty of committing a mass genocide of an estimated 400,000 to 1.8 million Armenians.
The man he's praising Sultan Abdul Hamid, he is guilty of committing the Hamidian Massacre, the precursor to the Armenian Genocide which resulted in the massacre of an estimated 100,000 to 300,000 Armenians
I've heard him saying a couple of times before that "Musalmaanon ney kisi ka genocide nahin kuya" for he has to prepare for any questions regarding the establishment of a caliphate for the Ottomans are guilty of committing a mass genocide of an estimated 400,000 to 1.8 million Armenians.
Prometheus
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more Facebook users in the Arab world than newspaper readers
There are now more Facebook users in the Arab world than newspaper readers, a survey suggests.
The research by Spot On Public Relations, a Dubai-based agency, says there are more than 15 million subscribers to the social network.
The total number of newspaper copies in Arabic, English and French is just under 14 million.
The findings seem to confirm the increasing popularity of the social interaction platforms in the region.
Alternative
Spot On Public Relations, a marketing and communications agency, says the figures show that such platforms are beginning to define how Arabs discover and share information.
In Egypt alone, there are 3.5 million users, which is way beyond the circulation of any of the biggest dailies.
Even in conservative Saudi Arabia, people have been quick to embrace Facebook. It is the country with the second-largest membership after Egypt.
One-third of the population in the United Arab Emirates are said to be on Facebook.
The findings should come as no surprise. The majority of the region's more than 300 million people is young, and internet use is on the rise.
In societies where political freedoms are severely limited, many have also resorted to Facebook as an alternative to the public sphere.
But the survey does not provide a detailed breakdown of how it is used in Arab countries - for example how much of it is for chatting and making friends and how much is for political and social campaigning.
But it contains valuable information for advertisers who want to reach the largest possible number of people.BBC News - Facebook outstrips Arab newspapers - survey
There are now more Facebook users in the Arab world than newspaper readers, a survey suggests.
The research by Spot On Public Relations, a Dubai-based agency, says there are more than 15 million subscribers to the social network.
The total number of newspaper copies in Arabic, English and French is just under 14 million.
The findings seem to confirm the increasing popularity of the social interaction platforms in the region.
Alternative
Spot On Public Relations, a marketing and communications agency, says the figures show that such platforms are beginning to define how Arabs discover and share information.
In Egypt alone, there are 3.5 million users, which is way beyond the circulation of any of the biggest dailies.
Even in conservative Saudi Arabia, people have been quick to embrace Facebook. It is the country with the second-largest membership after Egypt.
One-third of the population in the United Arab Emirates are said to be on Facebook.
The findings should come as no surprise. The majority of the region's more than 300 million people is young, and internet use is on the rise.
In societies where political freedoms are severely limited, many have also resorted to Facebook as an alternative to the public sphere.
But the survey does not provide a detailed breakdown of how it is used in Arab countries - for example how much of it is for chatting and making friends and how much is for political and social campaigning.
But it contains valuable information for advertisers who want to reach the largest possible number of people.BBC News - Facebook outstrips Arab newspapers - survey
under cover
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Censorship?? No wonder you are friends to chinese.
arsalan shafique
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mehru
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A crisis of identity
LIKE all Pakistanis, I hold multiple identities: I am a citizen of Pakistan and the world; I am a Muslim, as well as an avid user of the Internet.
Normally this would not cause any conflicts within a well-integrated personality, but when a controversy like the Facebook one arises, all those identities start to fight with one another.
The result is what we have today, with the Government of Pakistan banning Facebook, YouTube and other sites, some Pakistanis very pleased with this decision, others scratching their heads and wondering what happened to their personal rights.
It is precisely because we’re not well-integrated, as people and as a nation, that this has happened: as much as we like to claim we are sophisticated in our outlook, we aren’t really comfortable with our multiple identities, and so when a complex situation such as the Facebook controversy arises, we turn our backs on complexity, because it makes us feel insecure, and opt for the most simplistic position, because it feels the safest to us.I was the first editor of Pakistan’s Internet magazine Spider back in 1998, so I well remember the days when the Internet was new in Pakistan. Pakistan had been a relatively closed society up until then; only a privileged few could afford to travel and study abroad, to gain a different perspective on the world.
We were thirsty for information from foreign sources, and while we were willing to consider that the rest of the world held different beliefs and values than we did, we had not yet been truly confronted — in the most aggressive sense of the world — with the reality that the outside world may or may not appreciate and respect our belief systems.
Jump forward to 2010, some years after the Sept 11 attacks, the 7/7 bombings and the Madrid train bombings and in the midst of the war on terror. We now know exactly what the world thinks of Muslims and Pakistanis, thanks, in part, to the Internet.
We have spent the last nine years or so exhorting the world that we are not terrorists, that Islam is a religion of peace, that our Prophet (PBUH) was an exemplary man. The world has not gotten the message. In fact, the world seems to believe the exact opposite. So what do we do in the face of their certainty that Pakistani Muslims are evil and violent? Do we debate them on their terms, using the Internet as the medium, or do we step back from the argument, block the Internet and resort to threats of violence? In doing so, have we not fallen into a trap of our own making, as well as theirs?
As a Muslim, I’m furious about the way we’ve been portrayed in the media — as bomb-wielding terrorists. I’m furious that my religion has been hijacked by Muslim extremists, but also by the western conservative news media and political right, in order to produce a scapegoat for all the ills of the world, both eastern and western.
As a Pakistani, I’m embarrassed and ashamed when someone like Faisal Shahzad makes the headlines. As an Internet user, and citizen of the world, I want access to Facebook, to YouTube, to Wikipedia, to Flickr, and I want to be able to make the decisions about what I’m going to view and what I’m going to boycott.
I’m annoyed by the caricatures of the Prophet and I’m annoyed by the publicity the event has captured. I feel disturbed when I see women and children holding placards saying “Death to anyone who draws our Prophet”, but I’m glad that Pakistani advertisers have withdrawn their ads from Facebook, causing financial loss to the company that refused to remove the page in the first place.
It seems strange that I should be able to hold so many contradictory thoughts and feelings, but it’s quite normal, and can be explained by a psychological term called ‘cognitive dissonance’ — “an uncomfortable feeling caused by holding two contradictory ideas simultaneously” (I got this information from a Wikipedia page that hasn’t been banned).
According to social psychology, cognitive dissonance leads to all sorts of interesting human behaviours, including rationalisation, confirmation bias, the denial of disconfirming evidence, and other “ego defence mechanisms”. Or, it may lead to the sour grapes syndrome, as in “Well, Facebook was wasting too much of my time anyway, so it’s a good thing it’s been banned” even if you are feeling withdrawal pangs from not being able to check your Wall, read your friends’ messages and tend to your Farmville farm.
It seems that very few people in Pakistan are comfortable with cognitive dissonance. We like the benefits and the openness of the Internet, but cannot handle it when that openness goes too far for us. We like the idea of freedom, but cannot grasp the concept of freedom of speech, where nothing is sacred and anything and anyone can be ridiculed.
Instead of allowing those uncomfortable feelings to exist within us, while we try to work them out and come to terms with them, our first reaction is to withdraw from the discomfort. We then feel guilty and angry for having felt the discomfort in the first place; our second reaction is to lash out against the thing that provoked that discomfort in us. Hence the street protests, the placards, the people baying for blood against Facebook and its creators; hence calling anyone who doesn’t agree with the Facebook ban a non-Muslim, or accusing that person of not loving the Prophet.
What about those who don’t believe that Facebook should have been banned, or who even dare to believe in the more blasphemous idea that freedom of speech should be respected even if that speech offends or outrages you? Yes, those people exist in Pakistan as well. Are they bad Muslims, bad Pakistanis?
How about those people who believe that this kind of controversy should be best ignored, so that it doesn’t engender more publicity? Or those who think that the Prophet was such a great man that this kind of ***** cannot truly blemish his reputation? That Islam, and God, are bigger than this? Can we be comfortable with those opinions too, or are there only two sides to take: you are either with us or against us? I wonder where we have heard those words before.
DAWN.COM | Editorial | A crisis of identity
LIKE all Pakistanis, I hold multiple identities: I am a citizen of Pakistan and the world; I am a Muslim, as well as an avid user of the Internet.
Normally this would not cause any conflicts within a well-integrated personality, but when a controversy like the Facebook one arises, all those identities start to fight with one another.
The result is what we have today, with the Government of Pakistan banning Facebook, YouTube and other sites, some Pakistanis very pleased with this decision, others scratching their heads and wondering what happened to their personal rights.
It is precisely because we’re not well-integrated, as people and as a nation, that this has happened: as much as we like to claim we are sophisticated in our outlook, we aren’t really comfortable with our multiple identities, and so when a complex situation such as the Facebook controversy arises, we turn our backs on complexity, because it makes us feel insecure, and opt for the most simplistic position, because it feels the safest to us.I was the first editor of Pakistan’s Internet magazine Spider back in 1998, so I well remember the days when the Internet was new in Pakistan. Pakistan had been a relatively closed society up until then; only a privileged few could afford to travel and study abroad, to gain a different perspective on the world.
We were thirsty for information from foreign sources, and while we were willing to consider that the rest of the world held different beliefs and values than we did, we had not yet been truly confronted — in the most aggressive sense of the world — with the reality that the outside world may or may not appreciate and respect our belief systems.
Jump forward to 2010, some years after the Sept 11 attacks, the 7/7 bombings and the Madrid train bombings and in the midst of the war on terror. We now know exactly what the world thinks of Muslims and Pakistanis, thanks, in part, to the Internet.
We have spent the last nine years or so exhorting the world that we are not terrorists, that Islam is a religion of peace, that our Prophet (PBUH) was an exemplary man. The world has not gotten the message. In fact, the world seems to believe the exact opposite. So what do we do in the face of their certainty that Pakistani Muslims are evil and violent? Do we debate them on their terms, using the Internet as the medium, or do we step back from the argument, block the Internet and resort to threats of violence? In doing so, have we not fallen into a trap of our own making, as well as theirs?
As a Muslim, I’m furious about the way we’ve been portrayed in the media — as bomb-wielding terrorists. I’m furious that my religion has been hijacked by Muslim extremists, but also by the western conservative news media and political right, in order to produce a scapegoat for all the ills of the world, both eastern and western.
As a Pakistani, I’m embarrassed and ashamed when someone like Faisal Shahzad makes the headlines. As an Internet user, and citizen of the world, I want access to Facebook, to YouTube, to Wikipedia, to Flickr, and I want to be able to make the decisions about what I’m going to view and what I’m going to boycott.
I’m annoyed by the caricatures of the Prophet and I’m annoyed by the publicity the event has captured. I feel disturbed when I see women and children holding placards saying “Death to anyone who draws our Prophet”, but I’m glad that Pakistani advertisers have withdrawn their ads from Facebook, causing financial loss to the company that refused to remove the page in the first place.
It seems strange that I should be able to hold so many contradictory thoughts and feelings, but it’s quite normal, and can be explained by a psychological term called ‘cognitive dissonance’ — “an uncomfortable feeling caused by holding two contradictory ideas simultaneously” (I got this information from a Wikipedia page that hasn’t been banned).
According to social psychology, cognitive dissonance leads to all sorts of interesting human behaviours, including rationalisation, confirmation bias, the denial of disconfirming evidence, and other “ego defence mechanisms”. Or, it may lead to the sour grapes syndrome, as in “Well, Facebook was wasting too much of my time anyway, so it’s a good thing it’s been banned” even if you are feeling withdrawal pangs from not being able to check your Wall, read your friends’ messages and tend to your Farmville farm.
It seems that very few people in Pakistan are comfortable with cognitive dissonance. We like the benefits and the openness of the Internet, but cannot handle it when that openness goes too far for us. We like the idea of freedom, but cannot grasp the concept of freedom of speech, where nothing is sacred and anything and anyone can be ridiculed.
Instead of allowing those uncomfortable feelings to exist within us, while we try to work them out and come to terms with them, our first reaction is to withdraw from the discomfort. We then feel guilty and angry for having felt the discomfort in the first place; our second reaction is to lash out against the thing that provoked that discomfort in us. Hence the street protests, the placards, the people baying for blood against Facebook and its creators; hence calling anyone who doesn’t agree with the Facebook ban a non-Muslim, or accusing that person of not loving the Prophet.
What about those who don’t believe that Facebook should have been banned, or who even dare to believe in the more blasphemous idea that freedom of speech should be respected even if that speech offends or outrages you? Yes, those people exist in Pakistan as well. Are they bad Muslims, bad Pakistanis?
How about those people who believe that this kind of controversy should be best ignored, so that it doesn’t engender more publicity? Or those who think that the Prophet was such a great man that this kind of ***** cannot truly blemish his reputation? That Islam, and God, are bigger than this? Can we be comfortable with those opinions too, or are there only two sides to take: you are either with us or against us? I wonder where we have heard those words before.
DAWN.COM | Editorial | A crisis of identity
khanz
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No Body if u r a PAKISTANi then u know what kind of problems PAkistani young generation r facing...........................!!!
Stop using islam as an excuse for your backwardness you are absolutely insane nobody is exposing themselves on news channels even afghanistan is too progressive a country for you stone age is suitable for your kind
And who decides what is the "correct" news? We need the fourth estate to keep the other three in check.
sparklingway
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Molly Norris’ Facebook Page Hacked, Death Threats Issued.
A Hacker describing himself as a “Pakistani Student” who “Loves Mohammad” has hacked the Facebook Page of Molly Norris.
Molly Hacked
In further discussion on the same status the hacker issued death threats against the cartoonist:
Norris had inadvertently started the viral “Everybody Draw Mohammad Day” when she protested death threats to the creators of South Park. However, Ms. Norris has distanced herself from “Everybody Draw Mohammad Day”, a group which was not started or endorsed by her, on a number of occasions. Her website still has disclaimers condemning the group.Furthermore, Ms. Norris promotes the group “Against Everybody Draw Mohammad Day” from her website and has joined muslim Facebook groups such as “Introduce Mohmmad Day”.
However, cycynism and suspicsions regarding Ms. Norris’ motives never died down. Several Muslims commented on her wall:
The comments above are from before Molly Norris' account was hacked.
When will Muslims start protesting people like this Hacker that bring disgrace to their faith by acting in illegal and immoral ways?
A Hacker describing himself as a “Pakistani Student” who “Loves Mohammad” has hacked the Facebook Page of Molly Norris.
Molly Hacked
In further discussion on the same status the hacker issued death threats against the cartoonist:
Norris had inadvertently started the viral “Everybody Draw Mohammad Day” when she protested death threats to the creators of South Park. However, Ms. Norris has distanced herself from “Everybody Draw Mohammad Day”, a group which was not started or endorsed by her, on a number of occasions. Her website still has disclaimers condemning the group.Furthermore, Ms. Norris promotes the group “Against Everybody Draw Mohammad Day” from her website and has joined muslim Facebook groups such as “Introduce Mohmmad Day”.
However, cycynism and suspicsions regarding Ms. Norris’ motives never died down. Several Muslims commented on her wall:
The comments above are from before Molly Norris' account was hacked.
When will Muslims start protesting people like this Hacker that bring disgrace to their faith by acting in illegal and immoral ways?
Last edited:
Prometheus
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Face-off with Facebook
Of late, Facebook, the global social networking site, has been experiencing a series of glitches on its path to world conquest. With over 400 million users, and revenues in excess of a billion dollars, it is one of the Internet’s biggest success stories. And no, Pakistan’s decision to impose a ban on the site has nothing to do with Facebook’s current woes.
The big story is about the site’s privacy policy, and it is scrambling to undo the harm it did to its reputation by making data about its users widely accessible. Pakistan, with around 2.5 million users, is a drop in the ocean for Facebook. The people inconvenienced by the ban are the Pakistanis who were able to keep in touch with their family members and friends around the world. While younger, tech-savvy users can easily circumvent this ban with a few clicks on their computers, people of my generation will struggle to connect with their children or friends living and working abroad.
Frankly, I have never got into the whole social networking scene because I already spend too much time on my computer, writing, reading newspapers and researching articles, as well as replying to emails from friends and readers. Every once in a while, I log on to Facebook to see pictures of my grandson Danyaal posted by my son. But other than that, I generally avoid opening my Facebook page, so the ban has not affected me in the least.
In an excess of regulatory zeal, the Pakistan Telecom Authority has also slapped a ban on YouTube, Flickr, and several chunks of Wikipedia, the universal encyclopaedia. Is a total ban on the Internet next? All these childish measures only serve to remind us how out of step we are with the rest of the world. The truth is that it would have been a simple matter to block the offending Facebook page that was carrying the blasphemous drawings of the Holy Prophet [PBUH]. For PTA to take such an extreme step, there is something more to it than a desire to protect Pakistanis from sacrilegious Internet content. I suspect this decision echoes a controversy that took place last year when legislation was going to be moved to ban the use of cellphones and the Internet to spread jokes and allegations against the president and the government. The proposal became a joke itself around the world, and was quietly shelved. To my cynical eyes, PTA has used the indignation whipped up against the offending Facebook page to slap a total ban.
Interestingly, no other Muslim country has taken a similar measure, indicating that Pakistanis are more easily upset by any hint of blasphemy than our brethren elsewhere. And yet, according to Google, the popular search engine, the word ‘sex’ is typed in more often by Pakistanis than by Internet users in any other country. Clearly, we are not entirely consistent in our attachment to religious edicts.
Some five years ago, the Danish daily newspaper Jyllands-Posten caused a worldwide furore by publishing a dozen cartoons of the Holy Prophet [PBUH]. Buildings were torched in riots and many lost their lives. The Danish embassy in Islamabad was attacked by a suicide bomber who killed several Pakistanis. Those who were so worked up at the time will no doubt be distressed to learn that the price of one of the offending images drawn by Kurt Westergaard has gone up to $150,000 for the original, while 870 copies have sold for $250 each.
TV coverage of the recent demonstrations in Pakistan against Facebook showed angry, bearded faces of men who, it must be said, would be hard pressed to describe what the social networking phenomenon is about. In their ignorance, they were similar to the mobs who rioted, burned and killed to protest against Salman Rushdie’s Satanic Verses. In both cases, the protesters had no clue what they were so worked about, excepting that they had been told that somebody somewhere had blasphemed against the Holy Prophet [PBUH].
Such knee-jerk reactions actually boomerang against protesters. Rushdie’s book sales rocketed, while lots of people were driven by curiosity to check out the offending Facebook page after being alerted to its contents. Had Justice Ijaz Ahmad Chaudhry passed a less draconian order, it would have met the fate it deserved: complete indifference from the vast Internet community. As it is, the page is getting far more hits for its crude drawings than its creators could have dreamed of.
We all need to realise that the Internet is an unregulated and largely uncharted universe with literally billions of pages, and it is growing larger by the day. Among this enormous body of material, there are bound to be bits that offend somebody or the other. Equally, there is much of value on the Web. This is true of all media: while books, films and television all contain entertainment and information, they also carry pornography and other offensive material. Should we then ban libraries, cinema houses and TV broadcasts?
Within the last two decades, the Internet has transformed our lives in ways that were unthinkable before its advent, and the world is a far richer place as a result. Patterns of work, communication and entertainment have been altered forever, usually for the good. Those who set up the Internet and those who maintain it are determined to keep it as regulation-free as possible. Thus far, they have resisted attempts by governments to control how it is used, and to my view, this free-wheeling philosophy is to be welcomed and supported.
Once regulators step in to avoid offending one section of users or another, there is no telling where political correctness ends and censorship begins. The Chinese government has tried to censor and control the Internet, to little avail. In the aftermath of the Iranian elections, Tehran attempted to curb access to Twitter and many Internet sites following the protests, but again failed to block news from spreading.
Governments need to understand that their monopoly over news and information is now a thing of the past. In Pakistan, when both radio and TV were tightly controlled by the government, news could be twisted in a way that is no longer possible. We really need to grow up and understand that knee-jerk bans and restrictions end up only harming ourselves and nobody elseDAWN.COM | Columnists | Face-off with Facebook
Of late, Facebook, the global social networking site, has been experiencing a series of glitches on its path to world conquest. With over 400 million users, and revenues in excess of a billion dollars, it is one of the Internet’s biggest success stories. And no, Pakistan’s decision to impose a ban on the site has nothing to do with Facebook’s current woes.
The big story is about the site’s privacy policy, and it is scrambling to undo the harm it did to its reputation by making data about its users widely accessible. Pakistan, with around 2.5 million users, is a drop in the ocean for Facebook. The people inconvenienced by the ban are the Pakistanis who were able to keep in touch with their family members and friends around the world. While younger, tech-savvy users can easily circumvent this ban with a few clicks on their computers, people of my generation will struggle to connect with their children or friends living and working abroad.
Frankly, I have never got into the whole social networking scene because I already spend too much time on my computer, writing, reading newspapers and researching articles, as well as replying to emails from friends and readers. Every once in a while, I log on to Facebook to see pictures of my grandson Danyaal posted by my son. But other than that, I generally avoid opening my Facebook page, so the ban has not affected me in the least.
In an excess of regulatory zeal, the Pakistan Telecom Authority has also slapped a ban on YouTube, Flickr, and several chunks of Wikipedia, the universal encyclopaedia. Is a total ban on the Internet next? All these childish measures only serve to remind us how out of step we are with the rest of the world. The truth is that it would have been a simple matter to block the offending Facebook page that was carrying the blasphemous drawings of the Holy Prophet [PBUH]. For PTA to take such an extreme step, there is something more to it than a desire to protect Pakistanis from sacrilegious Internet content. I suspect this decision echoes a controversy that took place last year when legislation was going to be moved to ban the use of cellphones and the Internet to spread jokes and allegations against the president and the government. The proposal became a joke itself around the world, and was quietly shelved. To my cynical eyes, PTA has used the indignation whipped up against the offending Facebook page to slap a total ban.
Interestingly, no other Muslim country has taken a similar measure, indicating that Pakistanis are more easily upset by any hint of blasphemy than our brethren elsewhere. And yet, according to Google, the popular search engine, the word ‘sex’ is typed in more often by Pakistanis than by Internet users in any other country. Clearly, we are not entirely consistent in our attachment to religious edicts.
Some five years ago, the Danish daily newspaper Jyllands-Posten caused a worldwide furore by publishing a dozen cartoons of the Holy Prophet [PBUH]. Buildings were torched in riots and many lost their lives. The Danish embassy in Islamabad was attacked by a suicide bomber who killed several Pakistanis. Those who were so worked up at the time will no doubt be distressed to learn that the price of one of the offending images drawn by Kurt Westergaard has gone up to $150,000 for the original, while 870 copies have sold for $250 each.
TV coverage of the recent demonstrations in Pakistan against Facebook showed angry, bearded faces of men who, it must be said, would be hard pressed to describe what the social networking phenomenon is about. In their ignorance, they were similar to the mobs who rioted, burned and killed to protest against Salman Rushdie’s Satanic Verses. In both cases, the protesters had no clue what they were so worked about, excepting that they had been told that somebody somewhere had blasphemed against the Holy Prophet [PBUH].
Such knee-jerk reactions actually boomerang against protesters. Rushdie’s book sales rocketed, while lots of people were driven by curiosity to check out the offending Facebook page after being alerted to its contents. Had Justice Ijaz Ahmad Chaudhry passed a less draconian order, it would have met the fate it deserved: complete indifference from the vast Internet community. As it is, the page is getting far more hits for its crude drawings than its creators could have dreamed of.
We all need to realise that the Internet is an unregulated and largely uncharted universe with literally billions of pages, and it is growing larger by the day. Among this enormous body of material, there are bound to be bits that offend somebody or the other. Equally, there is much of value on the Web. This is true of all media: while books, films and television all contain entertainment and information, they also carry pornography and other offensive material. Should we then ban libraries, cinema houses and TV broadcasts?
Within the last two decades, the Internet has transformed our lives in ways that were unthinkable before its advent, and the world is a far richer place as a result. Patterns of work, communication and entertainment have been altered forever, usually for the good. Those who set up the Internet and those who maintain it are determined to keep it as regulation-free as possible. Thus far, they have resisted attempts by governments to control how it is used, and to my view, this free-wheeling philosophy is to be welcomed and supported.
Once regulators step in to avoid offending one section of users or another, there is no telling where political correctness ends and censorship begins. The Chinese government has tried to censor and control the Internet, to little avail. In the aftermath of the Iranian elections, Tehran attempted to curb access to Twitter and many Internet sites following the protests, but again failed to block news from spreading.
Governments need to understand that their monopoly over news and information is now a thing of the past. In Pakistan, when both radio and TV were tightly controlled by the government, news could be twisted in a way that is no longer possible. We really need to grow up and understand that knee-jerk bans and restrictions end up only harming ourselves and nobody elseDAWN.COM | Columnists | Face-off with Facebook
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