Pakistan Accidentally Blocks Millions of Websites In a Fumbled Censorship Filter
Mar 6, 2007
By Administrator
Filed in Don't Block the Blog!
Download the PDF Version of the Press Release
In recent news, it has come to light that for a period of four days the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority accidentally blocked millions of websites which suddenly became inaccessible for Internet users in Pakistan. The accidentally blocked sites are popular, non-controversial web pages with high traffic, including Google.com, Download.com, Microsoft.com, Gmail.com, Yahoo.com, BBC, CNN, Systematic, Akamai, PC World, MTV, Best Buy, Logitech and ESPN.
For over a year, the Pakistan Telecommunications Authority (PTA) has been actively blocking a number of websites after the the Supreme Court of Pakistan ordered it to censor twelve specific websites. Upon its own initiative,in an apparent misuse of the Supreme Court order the PTA also blocked the entire blogspot.com domain which hosts over 20 million blogs .
Over the four days, a malfunctioning unit within the internet monitoring body accidentally started blocking some major websites, What irked internet users in general was the apathy exhibited by the concerned authorities in attempting to resolve this issue. Following true bureaucratic tenet, the PTA refused to acknowledge their fault and are currently in denial mode.
This recent incident of malfunctioning technology has suddenly forced the PTA to remove all blocking mechanisms that were previously being enforced on blogspot.com and other so called “offensive sites” which also included a number of Indian websites and blogs related to the promotion of the Baluchistan cause.
We at Don’t Block the Blog have been highlighting the inherent flaws in selective internet censorship and had predicted such disaster was likely to happen . Any type of filtering limits the access to information to the people of Pakistan. A four day incident such as what recently happened also portrays a negative image of Pakistan to foreign investors who are looking to approach Pakistan for IT development. Intermittent catastrophic failure of Internet access in Pakistan will, by itself, drive business from Pakistan to other countries.
Over the past year, the DON’T BLOCK THE BLOG campaign has been recognized both nationally and internationally as an credible organization highlighting free speech issues in Pakistan. The DBTB banner is hosted on a number of websites around the world, and is a testament that many people believe in supporting the cause of free speech in Pakistan.
We at Don’t Block the Blog continue to strongly opposes any form of internet censorship and request national and international bloggers, print media, and free speech organizations to help support our cause and to continue to highlight this issue of the unfair blanket ban of blogs for internet users in Pakistan.
Background:
The PTA (Pakistan Telecommunication Authority) initially blocked access to the blogspot domain on the 3rd of March 2006, due to a Supreme Court decision dated 2nd March 2006 instructing the PTA to ban 12 offending websites which highlighted the blasphemous cartoons on the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH). In adherence to the Supreme Court ruling, all 12 sites were blocked including one that was hosted on the blogspot domain. But rather than block the offending blogspot website, the PTA blocked the entire domain (www.blogspot.com) which happens to be one of the most popular blog hosting domains hosting upwards of 8 million blogs globally, according to some estimates.
The Don’t Block the Blog (DBTB) campaign (http://www.help-pakistan.com/main/) was launched by the Alvi-e team, Dr. Awab Alvi and Omer Alvie, on 3rd March, 2006 in order to highlight the unfair blanket ban of the blogspot domain and additionally to show support for free internet speech in general. Approximately at the same time the Society Against Internet Censorship in Pakistan (formerly known as The Action Group Against Blogspot Ban in Pakistan – AGABBIP) (http://groups.google.com/group/AGABBIP ), a mailing list with dozens of contributing members also was formed to protest this form of censorship in Pakistan.
2 Comment(s)
By Journalist on Mar 30, 2007 | Reply
To whom regard truth,
This cencorship is another racist policy by rich conglomerates to keep the poor and honest voice unheard and brainwash and blind the world the the issuez in this country of Pakistan as well as other countries where voicez need to be heard.
By Nadeem on May 15, 2010 | Reply
Censorship instead of saving the dictators from their inevitable downfall, has contributed to the end of their regime, because never knew what is going and what people think.
Their censorship is entirely for political reasons.
This kind censorship is just one aspect of everything that happens. Encourage censorship at one level for instance porn, it leads to other kind of censorship without end. Too many dictators have come and gone completely ignorant about what people need. All that people know is propaganda and absolute lies that is the result of censorship. It starts with regulating then it becomes complete censorship. Many people in the West are very happy that child porn is censored and those who view and download it are being punished.
What these gullible people do not realise is that this is just the beginning.
More porn websites will be censored. Once the government is given the right and power to censor, it will censor everything. The day when news items exposing scandals and atrocities will be censored, they will begin to realise that will one day become victims the Internet will not save them nor will any other form of media.
Imagine if the Internet existed before the US Civil Rights movement no black person would ever be allowed to own a website, because it would exclusively for the White people. Martin Luther King would be jail if his speech was published on the Internet; but he made his speech without the help of the Internet and the world listened.
If it was entirely on the Internet, all the people who viewed his speech on the Internet and downloaded it into their computers would be considered a crime. because it would be illegal to sympathise with the Black people and their values.
Censorship is the most dangerous weapon of all in the hands of the government. AP reported the death of US soldier, the US military was enraged with AP for presenting information not controlled by them. The rise of censorship in the USA will lead to massive arrests of ‘undesirable’ people. From a democracy, the USA will become a dictatorship.