YouTube Blocked in Pakistan
By Curt on Feb 23, 2008 in Pakistan, YouTube, Blocked
Update: Associated Press (via New TeeVee) reports that Pakistan has removed the block that resulted in a worldwide block of the service. The offending video has been removed, of course. It’s an education to realize that one group of people in one country can deprive the entire world of a communications vehicle.
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Update: In a “near global blackout,” the actions of the Pakistan Telecommunications Authority managed to bring down all of YouTube for nearly every YouTube user! It’s bad enough when the delicate sensibilities of a government or mob in one country compromises that country’s citizen’s ability to engage in debate. It is simply unacceptable when the censorship activities of one country put the screws to the whole world. Enough already.
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RSF reports that YouTube was blocked Friday by the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority for the presence of “non-Islamic objectionable video.”
(T)he PTA, the official Internet regulatory body, ordered all Pakistani ISPs to block access to the website until further notice . . . Don’t Block the Blog, a group of Pakistani bloggers who combat censorship, thinks the blockage order was prompted by two videos. One is anti-Islamic. The other shows voters describing the fraud they witnessed during the parliamentary elections on 18 February, which ended up being won by the opposition Pakistan People’s Party.
We’ve asked our friend Dr. Awab of Don’t Block the Blog for a comment. See below in comments section.
Teeth Maestro | Feb 23, 2008 | Reply
Well youtube is blocked throughout Pakistan and this was the fact until just now when I have been told that it is limited to all ISP’s using FLAG backbone which comes throught the Pakistan Internet Exchange. BUT the TransWorld backbone does not come through PIE and hence only the blaspehmous videos blocked on ISP’s using TWA
The problem is that the PTA (monitoring agency) has filters which are IP specific and hence the entire youtube.com gets censored but TWA employs advanced filters hence allowing URL filtering. I have jsut made a post on my blog showing screen captures courtesy a user connecting via the TWA link
http://www.teeth.com.pk/blog/2008/02/24/twa-internet-backbone-link-blocks-only-blasphemous-video-url/
Blog Pakistan | Feb 24, 2008 | Reply
The above mentioned video in the post has been removed “due to terms of use violation.”
You can also confirm this via: www.sticklive.com or www.youhide.com
Thank you Google & YouTube team!