Last month, we harshly criticized Twitter for responding to questionable legal orders from Russia and Pakistan to take down content. We argued that the company that once called itself “the free speech wing of the free speech party” had caved in the midst of corporate expansion. We are therefore pleased to see that Twitter has […]
ISLAMABAD: The Ministry of Information Technology has clarified a news item published in print media on June 19, under the caption “Twitter restores access to blasphemous content”, saying that the news item does not portray the actual picture of the state of affairs. According to the spokesman of the Ministry, all social media websites like […]
ISLAMABAD: Twitter has restored access inside Pakistan to dozens of tweets and accounts, after blocking them last month following official complaints about “blasphemous” content, in a move hailed by free speech activists. The microblogging site said it had changed its May 18 decision – to restrict access to the material from within Pakistan in order […]
Censorship is like a talkshow – people don’t get to finish what they are saying, but you’re not sure if that’s bad for democracy,” an emerging young leader told a group of reporters. He was among the thousands of civil society activists, artists, and admirers of the great poets Faiz Ahmed Faiz and Habib Jalib, […]
So the Pakistan Telecommunications Authority (PTA) has started banning pages that do not fit the moral worldview of some of its more conservative office bearers. None of these pages are blasphemous by any stretch of the imagination but they do not fit the agenda that is being imposed by people sponsored by Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) who […]
Karachi: The 63-page study on hate speech in Pakistani cyberspace, launched by Bytes for All on Saturday, attempts to define and quantify the content and extent of hate speech in Pakistani cyberspace and has been authored by digital journalist Jahanzaib Haque, who is the editor of Dawn’s web edition. It defines hate speech as “speech […]
“Twitter Institutes Country Withheld Content Tool in Pakistan for the First Time,” read the headline of a post published on the Chilling Effects Clearinghouse website on May 18, 2014. In it were details of five requests made to Twitter by the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA), seeking to restrict `blasphemous’ and`unethical’ tweets and user accounts, which […]
NEW YORK: Twitter, the microblogging website, has blocked so-called “blasphemous” tweets five times at the request of Pakistan Telecommunications Authority (PTA) , the New York Times reported on Friday. All the five requests were honoured by the company, meaning that Twitter users in Pakistan can no longer see the content that so disturbed the bureaucrat, […]
KARACHI: Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) Senator Nasreen has written a letter to the Prime Minister Nawaz Shareef regarding concerns of people on the ban of social media website Youtube. ‘The ban on Youtube has not been lifted despite the fact that Senate and National Assembly’s Committees on Human Rights have given approval to lift the […]
WASHINGTON: Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups have expanded their online presence with increased use of social media, creating new challenges for thwarting attacks, said a study released on Wednesday. The study released by the Woodrow Wilson Centre’s DC Commons Lab found terrorist groups have moved their online presence to outlets such as YouTube, Twitter, […]
Sir: Even those outside of the ‘liberal-fascist’ viewpoint are now beginning to understand that the ban on YouTube is suspect, and few believe this issue is about blasphemous content anymore. The question is: who benefits from the YouTube ban in Pakistan? Actually, there is a long list of those benefiting from the ongoing blockage of […]
The ban on YouTube in Pakistan has deprived musicians of an instant platform for flaunting their music, leaving viewers without access to the world’s biggest online entertainment portal. Farhad Humayun is now attempting to fill that void with his new website Riot Arts (RiotArts.com). Touted as “Pakistan’s first music web channel”, Riot Arts is a […]
When is YouTube opening? The question has tormented Pakistan’s internet users since the release of the Innocence of Muslims trailer, and the consequent blanket ban in September 2012. The answer was assumedly the responsibility of the then PPP government, which opted instead to let the issue slide and become the incoming PML-N’s headache. To its […]
ISLAMABAD: The government holds no plan to restrict important services such as Facebook, WhatsApp, Viber and Skype after spectrum auction of multi-billion dollars 3G and 4G technologies in Pakistan, official sources confirmed to The News on Friday. The Cellular companies are worried about streams of their cash-inflows in terms of their voice services as increased […]
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