'Pakistan may become Enemy of the Internet, 2013'
The report states:
"At the time of writing, Pakistan has invited private-sector companies to bid for the creation of a national Internet filtering and blocking system. Reporters Without Borders has asked the authorities to abandon this project, which would result in the creation of an Electronic Great Wall. If they go ahead, Pakistan could be added to the Enemies of the Internet in 2013."
This latest warning comes in the wake of growing local and international outcry after the National ICT R&D Fund, a division of the Ministry of Information Technology, floated a proposal for a system “able to handle a block list of up to 50 million URLs with a processing delay of not more than 1 millisecond.”
Access Now, a non-profit, human rights, public policy and advocacy group also launched a campaign to call on IT companies not to "play a role in putting up the walls of censorship."
The campaign, which calls upon Bluecoat, Huawei, McAfee, Netsweeper, ZTE, and all local bidders to not participate in aiding the set up of the filtering system, gathered 17,243 signatures at the time this report was filed.
A number of other local and international groups including Bolo Bhi, Bytes for All, Human Rights First, Electronic Frontier Foundation and Websense have also issued statements against the internet filtering system.
The controversial move by the Pakistan government has also garnered coverage by the New York Times, Forbes, TIME and other foreign and local press.
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the internet cannot be controlled by anyone if they think they can block the sites than they are wrong if they really want to than they should block all the proxies too.........whether free or paid one....:)
block all anti Zardari sites. He is PPP's prophet.
@Optimist:
Correction. India is a state under observation. Nowhere being an enemy of the state.
When was the last time you heard Indian politicians banning something like Facebook?
Pakistan is certainly special in this category.
According to the Report, 13 countries are enemies of Internet including INDIA.
Shame on you ET for giving negative report about Pakistan without full facts!
salam, which time pakistan has said the truth? this is nothing just aprpaganda,one of friends told me that there are some porn sites still open (unblocked) they have blocked just some famous sites 1000 of sites are open already.
so Bill Gates will attack Pak next?
It is shameful to know that many of us believe that banning porn is violation of human rights or would hurt us. This system is a need of time provided it is implemented in a right way.
@Saeed:
Many torrent sites are banned in US, or atleast from being hosted from US soil because they promote piracy. But, not a single person can say Freedom Of Expression is not present in the US.
Same goes with India.
The main aim of any rule is to make sure people dont talk rubbish about them and criticize. That happens in India through our Electronic Media and Facebook. One minister actually suggested censoring FB, but had to retract the statement the very next day because of public pressure.
Indians love freedom too much to give it up to some crazy mullah-equivalents in India. India's culture is of tolerance and openness. Its the land of the Kamasutra. Islamist and Indian values are incompatible.
Pornography must be blocked, as you know last year Pakistan ws at the top for searching sex sites in the world, sham on sex searchers, go for Shadi mubarak, ask and decide to marry as you become BALIGH rather than Haram khori.
@Saeed India wants to ban 300+ websites because Indian Music Industry asks to. Hypocrisy must India’s national past time.
Ahem! Maybe you are not aware of a little something called copyright laws.
@Cautious: In other news, India wants to ban 300+ websites because Indian Music Industry asks to. Hypocrisy must India's national past time.
as long as objectionable sites are blocked it is OK, but once you have the tool, It will not take long to block non objectionable material. At the worst case scenario people may not even realize that some thing is was there at it is blocked. Its a good tool if you use it sensibly but were can we find sensible people, better not to give this tool to the governments and regret later
I think ban is rite as the main focus of ban is on porn and anti Pakistan websites... We should come out of this false debate and don't exaggerate this matter...
@Ahmad: "......this is only to filter those URLs which are threatening our norms and values. Most of which are SEX URLs on internet. I think it is the first step this govt is taking to in Cyberworld to protect our coming generations from the menus of pornography...."
Ofcourse. How right you are. The "coming" generation doesn't hear the maulvis preaching hate, doesn't see acid attack victims on print/ electronic media, doesnt read about the gang rapes ordered by panchayats to redeem honour, doesn't know about how the politicians are stealing from the country and driving more people towards poverty/ crime. All that adds to impeccable character building right?
@SalSal:
"So just because Pakistan is blocking porn and blasphemous websites, which many Arab countries do..."
The Arab countries block websites/ free speech because they want to preserve family rule and prevent people from speaking against them - ofcourse, the availability of porn on the internet is a convenient excuse. The banning/ blocking of porn sites on a religious pretext, is the best way to curb free speech on the internet. What guarantee do you have that blogs/ forums where individuals can rant against Nawas Sharif, Zardari, Altaf Hussain, Munawar Hasan, Asfandyar Wali Khan, Sardar Chandio will also not be banned? NONE.
If people are so offended by the content available on the internet, they surely turn their backs to acid attacks on women, the molestation of children (boys) in NWFP, women who are punished for claiming rape (she has admitted to the act) but the man, becasue of his denial goes scot free. Fix these and society will improve. Punish offenders and society will improve. Lock away people who commit crimes irrespective of their rank/ status in society and things will change. Blocking internet porn is a feeble/ misdirected attempt akin to taking chemotherapy for back leg muscle cramps.
Pakistan should ban Internet! It is an infidel technology which shows moral Bankruptcy. It encourages immoral contact between people of different sexes. You can even find pictures of women not wearing the burqa. This is not permitted and must be stoped. It is a zionist conspiracy to defile true muslims.. This shows the true face of Amercans who developed this evil technology.
The Difa-e-Pakistan will declare jihad on the Internet and prepare thousands of mujahids to attack the internet and destroy it. We will destroy internet even if we have to eat grass tomorrow. Pakistan is a nuclear power and the Internet should not forget it
Death to Internet, Death to America
Those who say k koi farak nahi parta their whole use of the net is restricted to a few 'holy' sites such as facebook and youtube. For advanced users it matters a lot. Internet is not a collection of isolated computers. It is supposed to be a network. You cannot cut of one part of the network without affecting the others. Today porn sites are considered to be immoral. tomorrow it will be bollywood content as well as facebook and utube. It will never stop
The ban is not only to made to block porn. But sensor the internet keeping in mind the interest of the government. And why ban porn? cause you don't like it? Please just don't watch it.
aur,is "global village" walay era men,there would be no such info jo ban hnoay ki wjh cy humayn nh mili tou hm Pakistanis mer jaeyn gy:p..The international media z much more fond ov talking about us.So,we'll nt be deprived ov anything.A positiv intiative should nt be condemned bcz,supposedly it can be abused.Without any proof,v can n claim the dangers of this policy
Eeh! how many idiots really believe the ban will be limited to porn How do you define objectionable?
It's an issue that should warrant concern --- the only bright side is that Pakistan doesn't seem to be able to implement anything properly so this may all end up a waste of money.
Hi! guys i personaly think we shouldn't even ban porn movies actully we are afraid of again getting award but i'm sure it will not happen again and there is no national intrest depends on internet. in all developed countries a man can watch at home but they don't. Why? transformation in minds.
oh,c'mon!!As far as I've experienced as a regular internet user,the ban or filteration z mostly applied at the porn sites n the blasphemous ones.N,I think that's an appreciable move by govt.(considerin the ratio of visiting porn sites in our country in previous few years).Also,Internet z accessible to everybdy,nowadays,includin not-so-educated masses,who use it mostly for 'tafreeh' purposes,as it goes..children,too,uze it.so,it's betta to keep a check.Also,I dun' understand how this ban at sum particular type of sites relates to dictatorship,free media,etc??This z nt a politically driven campaign for political gains.In a country with social n educational condition like Pakistan,such initiatives are gud.(I consider it to be 1 of the few good things this govt.has done:)) n,c'mon Pakistanis,are we not so fond ov becoming moral bacons n judges,at every level:)So,watt's da problm now??
what this article mean? what is going to happen with internet??? please some one explain in simple words?
@uc: Why you don't know how politicians of Pakistan are? Instead of blocking porn they will block every url that is criticizing zardari and nawaz sharif too. You cannot give control to our useless government thats it.
for all i those above who are in favor of this ban i pity you.
This article does not tells how we become ENEMY just be controlling the some objectionable urls. In some cases it is perfectly logical to ban access to some websites. Internet is just another parallel world although virtual, as we have laws and controls in real world, we can have such things in the internet world.
There can be a debate how to control and what to control, but saying that nothing should be banned and we have became an enemy doesn't seems right.
i wonder where were these so called human rights activists when Pakistan topped in watching porn , i am with Pakistani govt on this issue if Facebook or twitter or any other site is blocked with many pornographic sites and blasphemous sites , its not a bad bargain , this is a Islamic country and the content on internet should be filtered , bravo govt we stand by you
When countries like China ban Google and Facebook, and Gulf puts ban on porn and other proxy sites, they don't become "Enemy of Internet" nor their freedom or progressiveness is affected !! Why we are exception for everything in the world !!
Come on people... the whole of middle east including the (liberal) UAE does this. The companies you listed above most of them Western are doing huge business in this area. By the way its mostly going to be used to block porn.... which I guess is not that bad an idea.. i.e. watching porn cannot be construed as being liberal...
well all fellas! i must tell you that its not a BAN on INTERNET or abt our liberty while surfing. this is only to filter those URLs which are threatening our norms and values. Most of which are SEX URLs on internet. I think it is the first step this govt is taking to in Cyberworld to protect our coming generations from the menus of pornography. Yes ofcourse, there will be some URLs filtered through this system, which the govt may find harmful for the country's image/welfare as well. but thats not gona kill your rights for getting knowledge, ideas or ne other beneficial information that you need. i hope, its gonna help us in a long run. i hate PPP or PML and neither i am a political mind. so dont try to consider me a pro-ppp.
Good to go , I think we need it
Is there a list of countries that deliberately introduce single points of failure in their IT infrastructure as well?
What are the chances that the same PTCL employee who hijacked YouTube traffic (by making a type and taking ownership of Google's IP block on the international network routing tables back in 2008) won't mess up this censoring bottleneck and cause entire internet traffic to head straight into a terminator at the end of the line?
Can't by morality for the whole nation in the form of some multi-threaded network with 1ms delay.
Ban basant, ban concerts, ban valentines day, control print and electronic media and now ban internet only let the terrorists and uniform men roam free. We are not worthy of freedom we are happy under authoritarian regimes and dictatorships. We need Taliban not democracy.
The idiots sitting in PTA think that I can't watch porn online after their ban on xxx websites....lolzz!!!!
We (pak) are enemies of anything that goes towards progress and this all we do in the name of Religion, Culture, values and the top one , NATIONAL INTEREST
Yes i support Gov. over this media and internet regulation system
So just because Pakistan is blocking porn and blasphemous websites, which many Arab countries do, Pak wil become enemy of the Internet?
National interest is more important then any thing else.
We, the people, should do everything in our capacity to stop this ban.