Twenty seven percent of Pakistanis think Google is indifferent towards Pakistan as it blocked the controversial video from YouTube in India, Saudi Arabia and Indonesia but not Pakistan. While 60 percent thought the search engine is against Islam and Muslims, Propakistani reported on Thursday.
A survey was conducted by Rozee Research to find out the effects of the YouTube ban on the educated segment of Pakistan.
They survey primarily wanted to find respondents’ views regarding Google, the Government of Pakistan and what kind of effect the ban had. Also, to discover which segment, students, employed or unemployed was most affected.
Respondents take on Google
Respondents had mixed opinion regarding “why Google has not blocked video”.
Around 25 percent thought Google simply did not care, 24 percent were of the view that Google was being hypocritical, 20 percent blamed Google of upholding interest of the US State Department and CIA and 19 percent said Google was against Muslims.
The rest of the respondents thought it did not violate YouTube’s terms of use.
If the response of males and females are compared, the males became more prejudiced towards Google after the ban. Only 7 percent considered Google unfavorable before ban but the figure rose to 40 percent after the ban. The females were also of the same opinion.
Impartial Google?
A majority of the respondents, be it students, employed or unemployed felt Google was being unreasonable by not removing the controversial video.
Around 60 percent of each segment were wary of Google’s indifference towards the ban.
Government of Pakistan
Varied opinions came to view when respondents were asked who was to blame; the government or Google?
Around 48 percent termed Google’s decision to not remove the video as the reason behind the continuous ban.
Approximately 30 percent blame the government of not launching an official campaign while the rest either thought there is pressure from political parties to keep the ban or neither of the parties (Google and Government) is interested in removing the ban on YouTube.
For or against?
Respondents had a divided opinion on the ban. Forty six percent were against the ban while 44 percent felt it was justified.
Of the people who were unhappy with the ban, 35 percent blamed Google and Sam Bacile (creator of video) while the rest distributed the blame to government, Pakistan Telecommunication Authority and Rehman Malik.
With 52 percent of females opposing the ban, they had a more decided opinion compared to the males who were equally divided on opposing or appreciating the ban.
Result of the Ban
Around 88 percent of the respondents used YouTube before the ban but the figure lowered to 12 percent after the ban
Interestingly, quite a less number of the unemployed (13 percent) and employed respondents (11 percent) were able access YouTube as compared to the students (15 percent).
According to the survey, YouTube was mainly used as source of entertainment (69 percent) and a small percentage suffered monetary loss due to the ban. Nine per cent users suffered financial loss whereas 6 percent of advertisers faced loss.
Majority of the respondents, 70 percent, used YouTube to view self-help videos.
COMMENTS (22)
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@I am a Khan: Technology and science has come in large doses only from non muslims because they allow and support an open mind.There has been no contribution to science in recent times.
Google has entered into agreements with 42 countries (including Muslim countries such as Turkey, Egypt, Saudi Arabia etc) to provide local versions of You Tube - those countries were willing to jump through the hoops necessary to get localized versions and were free to ban the offending video - Pakistan didn't - End of Story.
@Owais: Google already learned from their experience in China when the govt requested to block the Tianamen Square videos in youtube and any searches leading to it...
Google decided to remain neutral..If Chinese govt want to block it,it means they have done something wrong..Because they feel that there might be uprisings after people watch it...
Da Vinci Code wasnt banned even in Italy and even Pope urged people to handle it in a mature manner..Remember,atleast "Innocence of Muslims" could be passed as a satire,but Da Vinci Code asserts that their conclusion is backed by evidence...
I'm offended by a video of a person taking vomit.I dont ask google to ban it.but I just refuse to go to that site...Similarly,ask ur muslims not to visit that video
I hate google and youtube for its hypocritical, how dare they ban that video in India.
and for most part I am sure most people speaking against google and those who took to streets going all angry have not even seen the video that is the cause of it
where are these surveys held? whats their credibility? whats the population size, age and genders of the participants? These surveys never represent actual information.
@I am a Khan Bro change your lenses. Education or technology is not for any specific religion. Reach out from your Imaginary self-satisfaction thoughts.
Gulam Rasool"Kuldeep sharma" New Delhi
"Sure: this is absolute non-sense. I'm a Software Engineer and I know how these things work, it is very much possible for Google to block the video for Pakistani IPs as well. This was a clear hypocrisy by Google. I myself have suffered much being a student of CS, but I fully support this complete ban. I dare each and every of you to try to upload a video against the holocaust and see how it ends up. If 1.6Bn people in the World have a problem with something, my question to everyone is that how do you day it isn't a problem? Maybe to your views it is not. The only problem now is absence of an alternate service. We should ban it the way China did by first building their own platforms.
@I am a Khan: so when exactly we divided education and knowledge between Muslims and non-Muslims. I thought education gained from where-ever was insisted in Islam?
Muslims will not progress if they dont start thinking out of box,rather,in your case,out of the book..
Not long ago,I read a news about something like "Halal Laptop" or similar name...The laptop can be used for one and only one purpose... Read Quranic verses,hear them,read the translation in around 16 languages. There is not even the function of a calculator other than that...
FYI..All the websites you mentioned are developed by atheists
Time to come out from conspiracy mind set & start living in real world!
For Pakistanis everything is against them and against Muslims but interestingly we Pakistani also want to take advantage of these things as well.
@I am a Khan: hope you are not joking
@indi: Absolutely possible if the Madrassahs provide world class islamic and worldy education and are made to a standard of Oxford, Cambridge, Harward, etc. But unfortunately no muslim person or organisation does that...so they remain dependent on the non muslims and accept the non muslims ridicule and disrespect towards Islam. If even one muslim country was as powerful as China or North Korea, the situation would be different. So its not the non muslims but the muslims themselves who are responsible for their downtrodden status.
"Twenty seven percent of Pakistanis think Google is indifferent towards Pakistan as it blocked the controversial video from YouTube in India, Saudi Arabia and Indonesia but not Pakistan."
It was blocked in those countries since they have a local (country specific) version of youtube, which Pakistan does not. The only way they could block it for Pakistan is to block it on the US version. Since the film was neither against google's policy nor US laws, it could not be done.
Oh boy.
@I am a Khan: possible with a madrassah education???
Google, Facebook, Youtube, Wikipedia will definitely not be pro muslim or pro islam. In fact since they are not owned by muslims, they may well be against Islam and Muslims. However the main point is why dont the muslims create their own search engines, better than google, their own network sites better than facebook, their own information sites better than wikipedia, youtube, etc?? Until they do not do this, the muslims will always be dependent on the non muslims for technology and information...
pls lift the ban on you tube ! :/
Google is business. Business doesn't see Muslim or non-Muslim.
The survey shows that we want the world to revolve around our whims and sensibilities. Independent companies have no responsibility to pander to a reactionary segment of our society. One thing we should keep in mind however is that the survey questions are very badly worded and may have influenced the respondents to pick a particular option.
for them, every thing is against muslims.......propaganga