Pakistan

Banning websites (V)

May 21, 2010

KARACHI: We are back to the Zia era. Where is the PPP government and all that it stands for?

God gave everyone the right to choose, hence if people don’t want to see or hear something they don’t need to go to the link. By blocking Facebook, YouTube, Wikipedia and other websites what kind of message are we sending to the outside world? What’s next? Will our TV channels be blocked too? Or maybe the whole of the internet?

Published in the Express Tribune, May 22nd, 2010.

COMMENTS (1)

Raziq Hussain | 14 years ago | Reply It feels pathetic that some sections of our so-called intelligentsia are passing resolutions and demanding a permanent ban on websites including some vital search engines like Google and Yahoo for containing some blasphemous material. Firstly, these people are so naive in their understanding of this modern technology that they could not even differentiate between a website and a search engine. Banning a search engine equals to the banning of the entire internet, rendering it useless. Secondly, it is not the first medium where such material has suddenly surfaced. As the internet is open to all, anyone can upload the content. Therefore, those who are objecting are also free to write and upload whatever they want. Further, the objectionable material was always there in the printed form (books, magazine, pamphlets etc) since history. Banning websites is not a good choice but to see them and to respond in a befitting manner is a good option. Unfortunately this is an age where the process of our sinking in the sea of degradation is becoming faster by each day and we have not much saner voices out there.

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