YouTube has been blocked since September 17, 2012. PHOTO: FILE
“I chaired a high level meeting with all stakeholders on the Youtube. Good job by PTA to block anti iIslamic material! Pl expect Youtube unblocked in 24hrs”
The move comes almost a month after the minister, whose ministry is not linked to either the Ministry of Information Technology, nor the blocking agency Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA), formed a committee to look into ways how the video sharing site could be unblocked while not in conflict with court orders on blasphemous material.
Malik has maintained on numerous occasions that any decision to unblock the site would be taken by the Cabinet, where it was decided to block the site in the first place. His tweet indicates that the government, after failing to convince Google, or YouTube, has managed to put in place individual blocks on urls for the video in a work around to reopen the site.
The site had been blocked on September 17, 2012 by the Cabinet in the immediate aftermath of mass riots in Pakistan reacting to a clip from an amateurishly produced sacrilegious film. The film had sparked violent riots across the Muslim world after a translated version was aired on Egyptian television. The violence saw American embassy in Cairo and in Libya attacked.
Following the violence, YouTube had been requested by a number of countries to either block the film in their countries or to completely remove it from YouTube servers. While YouTube, and its parent company Google Inc explicitly refused to comply with the latter of the demands, it did endeavour to block access to the content in India, Malaysia, Indonesia after requests were received from those governments. Google though unilaterally blocked access to the videos in Egypt and Libya.
It took a threat to be blocked and a court order in Brazil for the service to block access to the specific videos. However, Google did not comply with requests from the Pakistan government, which then proceeded to block the website completely. In addition to Pakistan, Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Sudan blocked access to the video sharing site after it refused to remove the video or block access to it.
Google had also twice refused requests by the White House to remove the video claiming the video did not violate its community rules and thus there was no reason to remove the video.
Malik added that those who had been pressing him to unblock the site should be happy now.
“There was a great demand to unblock Youtube from all sections of society especially fellow tweeps. Expect the notification today! Hope you are all happy now”
Not really a silver lining
However, the news of the video sharing site being unblocked comes with an ominous cloud over it. In a subsequent tweet, Malik let in on a more disturbing trend:
“PTA is finalising negotiations for acquiring a powerful firewall software to totally block pornographic and blasphemous material.”
Rumours have been rife that the PTA has been trying to acquire a firewall which can block websites at a very high rate.
COMMENTS (24)
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Well.It still isn't removed.This way government will be encouraged to build a firewall like the Great Firewall of China.Every major facility on the internet on the internet will be blocked except hotmail.Internet stone age YAY.People will say to each other"You know,there are still mordernly primitive people on the face of the Earth.
What results does such moves yield except create a sense of false security. If parents do not wish to have their children get exposed to some content, there are several free and paid options like Qustodio. Use it and forget it. Censuring content achieves nothing.
There are people who have witnessed the idiocy of our government regarding their love-hate relationship with YouTube but not nearly enough people it seems have spoken out against it! The hypocrisy of trying to filter out some material which is against a certain 'type' of religion but yet talking about democracy and freedom of speech is glaringly obvious. Surely, Pakistan should have reached a stage of evolution where freedom of expression does not lead to a barbaric backlash from the masses or where a prime minister does not have to pander to the irrationality of religious repression. Either let us admit that the Islamic Republic of Pakistan does not really believe in freedom of expression or if we really do want to encourage freedom of expression, let us find the intellectual courage to defend ourselves in ways that do not resort to repression!
Still waiting :(
blocking you tube by govt was just like-some one sets his whole house on fire to get rid of a mouse ! it was technically a useless endeavour ,to deprive the pakistani mass of “ access to visual information relating scientific discoveries and intellectual debates ”.the govt need to aquire specific software for blocking blasphemous movie .
@Colpit: Self esteem? Really? Personally, I felt rather embarrassed and you should too.
Do you really think other people are looking at us at thinking "Oh, these people are oh so esteemed; they deserve our respect". No. They think we're childishly emotional and not very bright as we insist on shooting ourselves in the foot in a rage every time somebody insults us.
We really have to learn to react in a calm, controlled and sensible fashion. The government could have and still can negotiate with google in a reasonable manner without any bans and toothless threats.
Now all the problems of poor masses would finally be solved. What a great news for the land of pure which hates everything from West including vaccination but happy with UTube.
Thanks to Hotspot! YT was already available ! No need to pay "thanks" to Mr.Malik
@Bewildered: I have no idea from where you heard this. India, Brazil, Malaysia, Russia, and France asked Google to restrict viewing of the video in their respective territories. Our little geniuses jumped the gun and went on blocking YouTube without proper consultation. I wonder how much censorship we will face as elections are just around the corner.
pathetic
@Jazib: look at the members of govt right now and that alone will answer your question
Seriously? They had to form a 'committee' to decide the unblocking of a single website? Aren't there much more important matters at hand? Why not unblock it straight away and spend their time doing something useful.
In the absence of You Tube, people have been browsing 'Why Tube'.
People now will go back to You Tube and Why Tube will be losing its users.
Had the ban been placed on Google after they refused Pakistan's request to block access to or to take off the blasphemous video, they would have listened and acted upon as they did in case of India, Malaysia, and Indonesia. But they exactly knew the real mettle of our ruling elite. Masters don't obey to their servants.
We blocked the website which giving free service to users, now how shamelessly unblocking ? Is YouTube a property of Pakistan ? Its time for Google to block YouTube for Pakistan ,So people realize the value of information.
The only thing achieved by this useless ban is the proliferation of proxies among the Pakistani internet community.
@hunzai: First of all by blocking we have attained a bit of self esteem which we as a nation and as Muslims are lacking. These 100 days without Youtube never felt different from anyother day. Just a PTA message appearing......
Have the goals been achieved? Has Google Inc listened to our requests? If no, then why is this ban being removed? And if we knew that we won't get positive response from google, why did we put the ban in first place?
Congratulations, one of the best things to happen this year!
What tweet? There isn't such tweet on Rehman Mali's official twitter handle.
Congratulations Pakistan! :P
An utter non-sense step which took months for rectification.