YouTube returns to Pakistan after three-year ban
Pakistan has allowed the return of YouTube to the country after a three-year ban, but its government will now screen its content.
Pakistan banned access to the Google-owned video-sharing website in September of 2012 after anti-Islamic film Innocence of Muslims was uploaded. Officials described the film as blasphemous and its release lead to protests against it in Pakistan, where 95 to 97% of its 190 million people are Muslim. In Pakistan, insulting Islam is punishable and imposes a maximum penalty of death.
The Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) has contacted Pakistani Internet service providers with a directive to unblock YouTube “with immediate effect”.
Pakistani ISPPakistan Telecommunication Company Ltd posted the news on its Facebook page on Monday:
The Ministry of Information Technology and Telecom released a statement Monday, which said: “On the recommendation of PTA, the government of Pakistan has allowed access to the recently launched country version of YouTube for internet users in Pakistan.
“[…] in future, if there is such [offensive] content, we can report it to Google. They will review and then restrict access to it from Pakistan.”
With the just-launched localised version, the PTA can report offending content to Google and request it be blocked in Pakistan.
A spokesperson from YouTube said: “In addition, where we have launched YouTube locally and we are notified that a video is illegal in that country, we may restrict access to it after a thorough review. Government requests to remove content will continue to be tracked, and included in our Transparency Report.”
Among the thousands of websites and web pages blocked in Pakistan are Wikipedia, WordPress, Twitter, Flickr, Reddit, Imgur and 4chan. On May 192010 the PTA ordered ablock on Facebook after a page titled ‘Post Drawings of the Prophet Mohammad Day’ was created. The ban was lifted after two weeks.
The film Innocence of Muslims is reportedly still unavailable on YouTube in Pakistan.