[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rxbPbssoS94[/youtube]

From the BBC: Pakistan’s Attempt to Block YouTube Causes Two-Hour Global Site Blackout

Pakistan has relented and lifted their ban of the media giant, YouTube.

Pakistan said Tuesday that it has lifted a ban on YouTube after the website removed cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed, adding that an earlier worldwide outage sparked by its actions was unintentional.

Telecommunications officials told AFP that the popular website was up and running again in the conservative Muslim nation after YouTube removed “highly profane and sacrilegious footage” that was offensive to Islam.

“We have issued instructions to all Internet service providers that YouTube should be unblocked as the specific content has been removed by the website,” Pakistan Telecommunications Authority (PTA) spokesman Khurram Mehran told AFP.

YouTube was not immediately available to confirm whether it had removed the material, which the PTA said was controversial cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed that were republished by Danish newspapers earlier this month.

So, why did Pakistan block YouTube and inadvertently bollock up a good deal of Asia’s internet traffic on Sunday? Some say it was Mohammed Cartoons like this:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5S3OA3nJRBQ[/youtube]

Some in Pakistan say it was the Musharraf government preventing local television coverage of voter fraud being broadcast around the world.

Some Pakistani users have expressed doubts over the official reason for Pakistan’s YouTube ban, saying that authorities wanted to block access to footage of alleged rigging in last week’s parliamentary elections.

President Pervez Musharraf’s allies lost heavily to opposition parties in the polls, which were preceded by allegations of massive vote fraud.

“Some Internet users are sceptical that the government banned YouTube because it contained clips from a private television station which showed election rigging,” said Wahaj us Siraj, chief of the Pakistan Internet Service Providers Association.

Internet user Sajid Ali said the ban was unnecessary because Muslims in Pakistan would not want to access blasphemous material anyway.

“No Muslim would want to view the blasphemous content on any website. The government is really disturbed over its defeat in elections and afraid of critical videos and remarks on YouTube,” Ali, a banker, told AFP.

In any case, the outage highlights governments ability to censure internet content. A warning for us all and certainly a wake-up for internet content providers.

Previous:

Pakistan Blocks You Tube Part Two

Pakistan Blocks You Tube

[youtube]http://youtube.com/watch?v=5S3OA3nJRBQ[/youtube]

Geert Wilders Promo for film Forbidden

Yesterday evening Flap had the story about the government of Pakistan ordering the block of American media giant You Tube because of Islamic religious objections.

First, it was the Mohammed Cartoons and international newspaper censorship and riots in the Muslim world. Now, it is the government of Pakistan censoring electronic media, You Tube, in the name of religion.

Pakistan has ordered all Internet service providers to block the YouTube website for containing “blasphemous” content and material considered offensive to Islam, officials said Sunday.

An inter-ministerial committee has decided to block YouTube because it contained “blasphemous content, videos and documents,” a government official told Agence France-Presse. “The site will remain blocked till further orders.”

The Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) told the country’s 70 Internet service providers Friday that the popular website would be blocked until further notice, the Associated Press reports.

The authority did not specify what the offensive material was, but a PTA official said the ban concerned a movie trailer for an upcoming film by Dutch lawmaker Geert Wilders, who has said he plans to release an anti-Koran movie portraying the religion as fascist and prone to inciting violence against women and homosexuals.

The PTA official, who asked not to be identified because he was not an official spokesman, said the PTA also blocks web sites that show controversial drawings of the prophet Muhammad.

[youtube]http://youtube.com/watch?v=j0jUuzdfqfc[/youtube]

An extended interview with popular Dutch Member of Parliament Geert Wilders on his upcoming anti-Koran film for Dutch television. Also discussed – Muslim immigration, tolerance and democracy.

But, apparently, Pakistan blocked more than just Pakistan’s access to You Tube.

Most of the world’s Internet users lost access to YouTube for several hours Sunday after an attempt by Pakistan’s government to block access domestically affected other countries.

The outage highlighted yet another of the Internet’s vulnerabilities, coming less than a month after broken fiber-optic cables in the Mediterranean took Egypt off line and caused communications problems from the Middle East to India.

An Internet expert explained that Sunday’s problems arose when a Pakistani telecommunications company accidentally identified itself to Internet computers as the world’s fastest route to YouTube. But instead of serving up videos of skateboarding dogs, it sent the traffic into oblivion.

On Friday, the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority ordered 70 Internet service providers to block access to YouTube.com, because of anti-Islamic movies on the video-sharing site, which is owned by Google.

The block was intended to cover only Pakistan, but extended to about two-thirds of the global Internet population, starting at 1:47 p.m. ET Sunday, according to Renesys Corp., a Manchester, N.H., firm that keeps track of the pathways of the Internet for telecommunications companies and other clients.

The greatest effect was in Asia, were the outage lasted for up to two hours, Renesys said.

And, why?

To silence Dutch member of Parliament Geert Wilders who just happens to have an anti-radical Islamic film about to debut on You Tube.

No freedom of speech in Pakistan. But, other countries had better work with Google to correct the ability of one country to limit internet access to the rest of the world.

Previous:

Pakistan Blocks You Tube

A man watches a clip on the popular video-sharing website YouTube. Pakistan has ordered all Internet service providers to block the YouTube website for containing “blasphemous” content and material considered offensive to Islam, officials have said.

First, it was the Mohammed Cartoons and international newspaper censorship and riots in the Muslim world. Now, it is the government of Pakistan censoring electronic media, You Tube, in the name of religion.

Pakistan has ordered all Internet service providers to block the YouTube website for containing “blasphemous” content and material considered offensive to Islam, officials said Sunday.

An inter-ministerial committee has decided to block YouTube because it contained “blasphemous content, videos and documents,” a government official told Agence France-Presse. “The site will remain blocked till further orders.”

The Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) told the country’s 70 Internet service providers Friday that the popular website would be blocked until further notice, the Associated Press reports.

The authority did not specify what the offensive material was, but a PTA official said the ban concerned a movie trailer for an upcoming film by Dutch lawmaker Geert Wilders, who has said he plans to release an anti-Koran movie portraying the religion as fascist and prone to inciting violence against women and homosexuals.

The PTA official, who asked not to be identified because he was not an official spokesman, said the PTA also blocks web sites that show controversial drawings of the prophet Muhammad.

Flap supposes that this site is blocked in Pakistan as well because of Flap’s refusal to NOT display the Mohammed Cartoons.

Freedom of speech becomes merely words unless it is supported by the rule of law. Shame on Pakistan.

Previous:

Mohammed Cartoon Watch: Solidarity with Denmark