Pakistan: Lift ban on YouTube

THE FRONTIER POST

The blanket ban on YouTube in Pakistan subsequent to its transmitting an outrageous film in the mid of September continues to the detriment of a broad section of society which used this Google-owned website to augment their learning. The government requested the parent company to block sacrilegious transmission before taking the decision. It was upon the refusal of the company to block the material that a blanket ban was imposed. The company refused the government request because it was not register in Pakistan and Pakistani laws do not govern it. YouTube suspended its services to many Islamic countries, including Egypt, Libya, Malaysia and Iran; even the Indian population was refused access. But this proved to be a temporary phase for them and the service has since been restored there after these countries blocked the blasphemous material and allowed other material for the use of its population and the issue was settled. But in Pakistan any meaningful closure to this blasphemy episode seems nowhere in sight and YouTube, the most popular website of the world, will likely remain blocked in the near future. The government action of banning the entire website, rather than blocking only the objectionable contents, has gone beyond harming local internet users who include students, scholars, intellectuals, educational institutions, professionals and their representative bodies, big or small business and other sections of society, particularly the youth. The Pakistan Telecommunication Authority said towards the beginning of November the ban would be lifted in two weeks, but it seems the government is not using the common sense to allow access to the website. But a good number of Pakistanis, particularly the population knowing the use of computer and its applications, have accessed to the website using other proxy servers. Virtually the government itself invited the illegal use of severs. This unlawful use has resulted in the disrupting or at least slowing down of various Google services and they include: Gmail, Gmail Chat, Google Talk, Google Drive, Google Analytics and Google Maps which an increasing number of Pakistanis are found to be using to navigate in their cities and across the country. Essentially, rather than filtering the blasphemous content, the authorities chose to put in place a wall by blocking the whole platform of YouTube which is only one-thirds of the whole Google regime .The government must act objectively by lifting ban on the website by blocking the outrageous material as has been done by other countries.