May 20, 2010

After Facebook, Pakistan Blocks YouTube Over Sacrilegious Content




Hot on the heels of Pakistan’s blockade of Facebook due to caricatures of Prophet Muhammad comes the news that Pakistan has also blocked YouTube due to content that’s offensive to Islam.

While the Facebook ban in Pakistan was a direct result of a group calling users to submit drawings of Prophet Muhammad, the YouTube blockade isn’t explained in detail. According to AP, Pakistan Telecommunications Authority simply cited “growing sacrilegious contents” as the reason for the ban.

The ban of Facebook and YouTube is likely to continue until representatives from both sites resolve the dispute with the Pakistani government in a way that “ensures religious harmony and respect.” Facebook representative said the usual way to resolve such issues, if the group in question doesn’t break its terms of service but is illegal in another country, is to restrict the group from being shown in that country.

However, the blockade seems to be much wider, as some of our readers, as well as reports on Twitter, point out that access to Flickr, Wikipedia and other sites has been restricted, too.

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