YouTube Ban in Pakistan | Pakistan Press Foundation (PPF)

Pakistan Press Foundation

Right to information: YouTube ban equated with stopping blasphemy

Pakistan Press Foundation

LAHORE: A group of lawyers favouring the ban on YouTube staged protested demonstration outside the Lahore High Court against “blasphemy or any steps taken to defend blasphemers.” Bytes for All, the petitioner, is seeking withdrawal of the ban on the popular video sharing website. Its counsel Yasser Latif Hamdani and four officials appeared at the […]


End to the YouTube ban in sight?

Pakistan Press Foundation

The YouTube ban in Pakistan has just entered its sixteenth month–with its duration equally divided between the previous government which slapped it and the current government which was supposed to undo it. That this saga has gone on for so long is not surprising to Pakistanis who are quite used to a status quo where […]


CII may be asked to check material on YouTube

Pakistan Press Foundation

ISLAMABAD: Before lifting the ban on YouTube in Pakistan, the government is considering placing an institutional mechanism in place to consult the Council of Islamic Ideology (CII) to determine if any contents on the Internet are blasphemous or pornographic. After placing such mechanism, the PTA will then be asked to block such material to enable […]


Pakistan’s internet censors seek help from Canadian company

Pakistan Press Foundation

ISLAMABAD: In a nondescript, creeper-draped building in the capital of Islamabad, a small team of men is purging Pakistan’s Internet. Shadowy government officials are blocking thousands of pages deemed undesirable. But they are not fast enough. So the government is now testing Canadian software that can block millions of sites a second. The censorship helps […]


YouTube ban: Google to appear before Lahore High Court

Pakistan Press Foundation

KARACHI/LAHORE: Legal representatives of Google Inc. are expected to appear before the Lahore High Court (LHC) on Thursday, May 16, 2013 to explain the company’s position in the ongoing ‘Bytes For All versus Federation of Pakistan’ 958/2013 aka YouTube Case. The video-sharing website was blocked by the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) over ‘Innocence of Muslims,’ […]