25
Pakistanis have been cut off from YouTube for two years now following a ban put in place by the PPP-led government. Through the efforts of local NGO Bolo Bhi, Dawn.com highlights the impact of this loss as narrated by lawmakers, experts and other stakeholders.
"There isn't a law or set of regulations or rules that allow PTA or MoIT, or the IMC to actually go ahead and regulate [internet] content. Consequently what we see is adhocism as nobody has thought through this"
Babar Sattar, Lawyer
“A: censorship is wrong and B: the people, the viewers are smart enough to sift fact from fiction...so this kind of approach is harkening back to the past, which has no relevance for the present and the future”
Syed Mushahid Hussain, Senator PML-Q
“At the end of the day you have a Rs30,000 earning IT administrator babysitting [filtering] software, how do you make sure that is not getting exploited?”
Khurram Zafar, Adjunct Faculty, Information Technology University (ITU)
“A lot of our [University of London Law] lectures are embedded through YouTube and its inaccessible in our country and I find it frustrating that I can’t even study the subject that I want to”
Saadullah Awan and Ahmer Jamil Khan, Law students at SZABIST
“It is because we fear information. We fear all this technology. It is becoming very difficult for many within the government, whether it is civil bureaucracy or military bureaucracy, to control what is being said on the internet...it has become a joke now”
Bushra Gohar, Former ANP Member of National Assembly
“Do we want to prevent our youth from benefiting from the information that is available from video sharing platforms like YouTube?"
Dr Farooq Sattar, MQM Member of National Assembly
“The IMC committee's terms of references must be clear, and any decisions they make should be public. It cannot operate under this shadow of confidentiality and secrecy”
Wahaj us Siraj, Convenor ISPAK (Internet Service Providers Association of Pakistan)
"If I was a serious investor, I would scratch my head and say every second day they are shutting down a network. A one day shut down is a billion, billion and a half rupees of loss...doesn't make me want to invest several billion dollars..."
Salman Ansari, IT & Telecom Expert
"Yes there is a sense that young people should be protected from certain content that is available on the internet, but let the parents do it. That's what they're there for. Let the teachers do that. It's not the government's job"
Jehan Ara, President of Pakistan Software Houses Association (P@SHA)
Read more
On DawnNews
Comments (25) Closed
Sep 18, 2014 02:18pm
First let us have access to basic necessities , we will think about youtube later .
Recommend
0
Sep 18, 2014 02:22pm
India taxes YouTube earnings....here we just ban it. Kudoos!
Recommend
0
Sep 18, 2014 02:24pm
Apart from the other educational material, There are thousands of online Islamic lectures on YouTube, and that too of renowned Islamic Scholars e.g Zakir Naik, Nauman Ali Khan, Yusuf estes, Hamza Tzortzis, Yasir Qadhi etc.
And we banned YouTube because of just one video?
Could we not really just have ignored it? and reap the benefits of learning from the beneficial material available in YouTube?
YouTube comes with many sides and faces. It depends on the individual alone on which side he wishes to interact with.
Recommend
0
Sep 18, 2014 02:24pm
YouTube should be unblocked already.
Recommend
0
Sep 18, 2014 02:50pm
Alot of people including me access lectures of leading educationalists from Khan Academy and Bright storm etc. Banning YouTube is hampering our education.
Recommend
0
Sep 18, 2014 03:02pm
You tube is waste of time.
Recommend
0
Sep 18, 2014 04:34pm
But actually by any professional means if any Govt or bunch of Govt.s requests your company to remove some content, then what should you do?
So the other competitors does have the right and have chilled their revenue due this non-professional and unethical behavior lead by youtube.
If they regret their decisions then we in favor it, otherwise, business seeks business nor the things you deliver.
Recommend
0
Sep 18, 2014 05:02pm
Assassination is the extreme form of censorship we have been experiencing in Pakistan....I believe in freedom of speech and freedom of expression..we have been mentally imprisoned for 65 years or so .we have to liberate our minds first but there is a fine line between censorship and good taste and moral responsibility.
Recommend
0
Sep 18, 2014 06:27pm
the blocking of you tube is insane. It has become the top destination for learning across the world, learning simple skills like plumbing or library of computer skills. The ban on it in Pakistan is propagated by foolish people who do not understand its value to the nation. The rest of the world is using this increase knowledge their economies and train people for jobs, our maulvis use it to bury their head in the sand.
Its insane, and self harming.
Recommend
0
Sep 18, 2014 06:51pm
"It is because we fear information". Bushra Gohar, Former ANP Member of National Assembly
So very well said.
Recommend
0
Sep 18, 2014 06:55pm
@kashmiri I agree with you, but access to information has become one of the necessities in this day and age.
Recommend
0
Sep 18, 2014 07:18pm
I am totally against the censorship of Internet but again Miss Jehan Arra gave a pathetic statement over this issue.
Recommend
0
Sep 18, 2014 09:53pm
Remember Philsafa (Philosophy) and independent thinking out side of strict Islamic teachings was banned in Turkey around eleventh-Twelfth century at the penalty of death. And, that was adopted by the Muslim Ummah as Turkey wasaccepted as the seat of the Caliphate then. Have the Muslims noticed the ever lasting impact on the Muslim Ummah of that ban, yet? Guess not?
Recommend
0
Sep 18, 2014 09:57pm
Banning of YouTube is good business for other sites like Daily Motion.
Recommend
0
Sep 18, 2014 10:02pm
All: Use alternate i.e ytpak, dailymotion, vimeo....
Recommend
0
Sep 18, 2014 10:11pm
@kashmiri :"First let us have access to basic necessities".
I view YouTube as a basic necessity. I consider education (awareness) a basic necessity, and YouTube is an excellent, free source of knowledge.
Recommend
0
Sep 18, 2014 10:16pm
YouTube....MeTube..... WhatTube....... and life goes on.
Recommend
0
Sep 18, 2014 11:36pm
I will do a dharna for youtube if anyone is leading it
Recommend
0
Sep 19, 2014 12:14am
@kashmiri use vimow to open youtube directly
Recommend
0
Sep 19, 2014 12:19am
It's really frustrating to see that the regulating authorities have taken so much time to remove the pointless ban of a rather information rich website. They need to understand that unlike telivison, where channels can be blocked or banned for showing (subjectively) offensive content, internet can not be completely censored. Any person can bypass the censorship through a VPN. The only thing that they have achieved by blocking the website is the inconvenience for the majority of internet users
A few stupid clips can not overshadow the vastness of informative videos that are submitted there regularly. One rotten apple is not enough to disqualify the whole batch.
Recommend
0
Sep 19, 2014 01:32am
@kashmiri Why? YouTube access requires a switch to be turned on and that's it. Other things are not available to you because the government by blocking access to information is keeping from you free education. But it's not even education, it's the ability to choose your own path in life. The ability to say yes, I want to use YouTube or something else even if there is bad stuff on it.
Freedom and ability to improve one's life isn't dependent on whether there are goods available. It's more of a matter of mindset. With the correct mindset people start innovating and improving things automatically. Those few in governments have repressed the minds for so long and abused their power that it's unthinkable for a Pakistani to have access even to YouTube? Even African countries and Bangladesh have it as well!
@UnshacklePak
Recommend
0
Sep 19, 2014 03:24am
One positive thing about this ban is that there is a marked decrease in Indo-Pak war in the YouTube comments section...
Recommend
0
Sep 19, 2014 11:21am
just a madness. they better shutdown facebook(waste of time) then a youtube. there are many great learning things on youtube.
Recommend
0
Sep 19, 2014 12:20pm
@Seriously???
Seriously you consider Zakir Naek an Islamic Scholar?
Recommend
0
Sep 19, 2014 01:34pm
My 1 year old used to watch educational videos on youtube and she learned so many poems when she was very little. Now I have another daughter who will be 1 in October and I miss not being able to show her the poems and stories on youtube.
Recommend
0
