Looks like Government of Pakistan is set to give a new ray of sunshine to the local residents as after a span of three years, the Government has finally lifted the ban on video-sharing website YouTube and this change has been contributed to the underlying fact of Google launching a country-specific version of the same. Prior launching, Google ensured to filter out the content that was deemed blasphemous by the Government.
Blasphemy is a severe issue in Pakistan and the country has seen several riots happening under the pretext of the same, and the Supreme Court taking into consideration the upload of Innocence of Muslims video ordered a ban on the site long back in 2012.
The American-made film depicted the Prophet Mohammed as a thuggish deviant and triggered protests across all the Muslim nations including Pakistan, where more than 20 people died in demonstrations and protests. But, last week Google launched a localized version of YouTube in Nepal, Pakistan and Sri-Lanka implying that the Government can now ask the Google officials to remove the objectionable content and now the ban has been lifted officially.
When senior officials were asked to comment on the news they said, Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) Monday directed the Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to unblock YouTube with immediate effect and that the ban has been lifted after Google launched a country-specific version in which it would be possible to block blasphemous and offensive content. Wahajus Siraj, chief executive officer of internet service provider Nayatel Private Limited, confirmed receiving the instruction.
He further added that he had checked and did not find blasphemous content on the website, saying that some videos came up with a notification that they had been blocked. Google has provided an online web process through which requests for blocking access of the offending material can be made by PTA to Google directly and Google/YouTube will accordingly restrict access to the said offending material for users within Pakistan. Google has said that it would review requests before taking videos down.
Pakistan Telecommunication Company Limited, the country's largest telecom provider, also announced the move on its Facebook page with a Welcome Back YouTube post. Islamabad had been in intermittent talks with Google for several years over the issue. Internet users in Pakistan, meanwhile, simply circumvented the ban using proxy servers and Virtual Private Networks. Five years back in 2010 also, Pakistan had shut down Facebook for nearly two weeks over its hosting of allegedly blasphemous pages and it still continues to restrict thousands of online links.