YouTube blocked in Pakistan

[Mercenary]

Who cares if Pakistan bans YouTube.

With Pakistan under chronic power outages, people won't even have the opportunity to type youtube on their computers before the power goes out again.

 

[Hulk]

What has been reported or fed to us is that the Government of Pakistan had sent a letter to Youtube requesting to take down the video. They refused to take down or block the video in Pakistan and consequently YouTube is blocked in Pakistan until further notice.

In that case YouTube is at fault.

 

[rakam]

it will be back again. how much income youtube have from pak , people are visiting that video from whole world , it's golden chicken for youtube

 

[UmarJustice]

Pakistan blocks YouTube as other measures fail

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan was forced to block the video sharing site YouTube completely on Monday after the authorities realised that the government has not installed a filtration system and does not have a treaty with Google that would block objectionable videos.

The prime minister ordered the blockage of YouTube after the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) and other relevant agencies recommended that the government as well as the Supreme Court should completely block YouTube for a few days to prevent access from Pakistan of the latest anti-Islam film available on the internet.

While countries like India and Indonesia have successfully got such blasphemous sites blocked through the intervention of the Google/YouTube administration, Pakistan was helpless because of the incompetence of the IT authorities as it has neither any such treaty with Google nor has the filtration system installed to block the blasphemous and pornographic sites.

In an inter-ministerial meeting attended by officials of the Interior Ministry, Information Technology, PTA, FIA and other agencies here on Monday, it was unanimously recommended that as a short term measure YouTube should be blocked altogether with immediate effect. The long-term solution is to enter into a treaty with Google (which owns YouTube now) that will enable the signatory state to get any objectionable site blocked from Google.

In the absence of any such treaty with Pakistan, Google, despite earning a profit of almost Rs50 million from Pakistani internet users in just one year, is not there to cooperate with the local authorities. The Pakistani authorities had approached Google but to no avail.

The inter-ministerial meeting was told by the experts of the PTA that in the absence of the treaty, which Pakistan has never thought of signing in the past, and owing to the fact that Pakistan does not have any filtration system installed like China, Saudi Arab, Iran and several other countries have, it is not possible to block the anti-Islam film without completely blocking YouTube.

The PTA chairman, when approached, said the only immediate solution was the complete blockage of YouTube as chasing objectionable sites in ones and twos would not solve the problem. He said hundreds of sites, where the film was accessible, were blocked but the blasphemous material continues to appear on innumerable other sites.

The chairman told The News that he was writing to the apex court that there was no solution to this immediate challenge, but to completely block YouTube for a few days. The long-term solution, the PTA chairman confirmed, is a treaty to be signed between government of Pakistan and Google administration that would take some time.

According to sources, the issue badly exposes the Pakistani IT authorities as they had not even signed a treaty with the Google administration in line with the initiative taken by India four years ago. Unlike Pakistan, the sources said Indian has already blocked the blasphemous film by taking up the matter with Google in time under the terms of the treaty signed between them.

The sources said Malaysia also has the same treaty with the Google/YouTube administration. Pakistan is, however, so inefficient and indifferent to such issues that it does not even have a filtration system installed that can effectively help check blasphemous and pornographic sites. Interestingly, the incumbent prime minister during his tenure as the minister for IT in May this year had got a notification issued for the installation of the filtration system to check blasphemous and pornographic material, but nothing has been done as yet.

On Monday, the Supreme Court said the PTA is under legal obligation to control such material but it has failed to perform its statutory duties. Therefore, directions are issued to the PTA to block the anti-Islam film on YouTube and refrain in future as well from allowing such material to be displayed.

Pakistan blocks YouTube as other measures fail - thenews.com.pk

 

[RazPaK]

Who cares if Pakistan bans YouTube.

With Pakistan under chronic power outages, people won't even have the opportunity to type youtube on their computers before the power goes out again.

People have generators? Derp.

 

[Mercenary]

People have generators? Derp.

They need them to power essential things like Light Bulbs or Air Conditioners.

 

[Bukhari.syed]

The reason was that Google and Youtube rejected to take down the movie

San Francisco, September 15:


In spite of the widespread violence fuming in the Muslim world over an anti-Islam film, Google on Saturday rejected a request by US officials to take the movie clips on YouTube, off the web.

The 14 minutes movie clip named “Innocence of Islam” that projects Prophet Muhammad as a fraud and philanderer, is being deemed highly objectionable by the Muslims across the world, resulting in intensely violent protests against Western Embassies.

US Ambassador to Libya Christopher Stevens along with four American colleagues was killed in Libya on Wednesday when protesters enraged over the anti-Muslim film raided the US Embassy there.

Following this, Google blocked the reportedly provocative film’s access to people in Egypt and Libya, but stopped short of taking the content off the web.

Rejecting the request by the White House in a statement on Wednesday, Google, which owns YouTube, said on Wednesday, "This video - which is widely available on the Web - is clearly within our guidelines and so will stay on YouTube," Google said in a statement.

"We've restricted access to it in countries where it is illegal such as India and Indonesia, as well as in Libya and Egypt, given the very sensitive situations in these two countries," the company said.

White House officials had asked Google earlier on Friday to reconsider whether the video had violated YouTube's terms of service.

Google’s decision has again brought to focus the dangerous domino effect of the social media.

--Agencies

 

[chitti]

it was good video. i liked it. good characterization.

 

[Fareed_Iidrees]

problem is not going to be solved by blocking youtube......Destroy islamic fanatics in Pak.....and there will be peace in Pak

 

[TheJewverine]

Actually Pakistan should technically ban google, not youtube. .

So what you're saying is that you want this forum to be banned? It uses Google as its search provider.