Anti-Islam film: prime minister ordered blockage of YouTube after Pakistan Telecommunication Authority’s recommendation

Islamabad, September 17, 2012 (PPI-OT): Pakistan was forced to block the video sharing site YouTube completely on Monday after the authorities realized that the government has not installed a filtration system and does not have a treaty with Google that would block objectionable videos.

The prime minister ordered the blockage of YouTube after the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) and other relevant agencies recommended that the government as well as the Supreme Court should completely block YouTube for a few days to prevent access from Pakistan of the latest anti-Islam film available on the internet.

While countries like India and Indonesia have successfully got such blasphemous sites blocked through the intervention of the Google/YouTube administration, Pakistan was helpless because of the incompetence of the IT authorities as it has neither any such treaty with Google nor has the filtration system installed to block the blasphemous and pornographic sites.

In an inter-ministerial meeting attended by officials of the Interior Ministry, Information Technology, PTA, FIA and other agencies here on Monday, it was unanimously recommended that as a short term measure YouTube should be blocked altogether with immediate effect. The long-term solution is to enter into a treaty with Google (which owns YouTube now) that will enable the signatory state to get any objectionable site blocked from Google.

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Azad Jammu and Kashmir
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