Talk:Internet censorship in Pakistan

Older discussions
1) This article should be specifically about all Internet Censorship in Pakistan, and not just the the ban on blogspot sites.


 * Agreed. As you may have noticed, this site was just put up, and it was Blogspot banning that motivated it. However, the hope is that people will add further general censorship details as time goes by. Beetle B. 18:55, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

2) Please don't be reverting the wiki article before discussing with other editors on this talk page, thank you. I've reverted to the changes made by 70.131.243.206 [nkb], she's spent a good amount of time trying to come up with a proper structure for the wiki page article. Secondly she did so upon request by me, please double-check with KO [history info was obtained from him]. cheers! Angeloe 21:48, 6 March 2006 (UTC)


 * I did a rollback because of this diff- Dakota ~   °  21:54, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the spelling fix. It got lost on the rollback. Nkb


 * I wikified and restructured it to be more in line with Manual of Style. I saw this notice after doing so, but as I have not touched the content (info & tone) I hope there is no conflict. AshishGtalk 16:37, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

AsishG: Thank you for improving the look of the Article. While I know how to do wikis, you are much better informed about the Manual of Style. I appreciate your help. I can't sign in because I can't remember my password. I think I am going to add a little more and will try to sign my additions so that something shows up rather than my IP, which is not static. If you can help with the manual of style if I make mistakes, that would be very helpful. Nkb 3April06

--- The Supreme Court decision is only available offline.

Listing of blocked sites
Would it not make sense to make a list of all the sites that are currently known to be blocked in Pakistan? Such a list has been started very recently at WikiPakistan. I would really be interested in figuring out which sites are being blocked and whether they are an ISP-level block or blocked through PIE or both. Hulleye 08:53, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

The List may not be shown but at least it must be discuss when more than 50 Baloch(Balochi) websites are block, if you talking about the internet censorship you must have to discuss the blockage of Baloch websites, it must be notice that most of Baloch websites are blocked by state because of political reasons.

Thanks —Preceding unsigned comment added by 116.71.93.106 (talk) 11:05, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

Proposed merge
We should put this under Censorship in Pakistan as that deals with generally censorship. Until that page gets too big we don't need an Internet one as well. Skinnyweed 17:42, 29 May 2006 (UTC)


 * Did you know that Censorship in Pakistan redirects here?
 * Septegram 18:03, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia Ban
Some Articles on wikipedia may also have been banned i have just come across one

Remember its not a blanket ban only specific articles.

The following is confirmed banned. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jyllands-Posten_Muhammad_cartoons_controversy ChaoticSilence

The government of Pakistan currently has a simplistic IP based filtering procedure in place
This is simply not true anymore, as the ban on wikipedia articles shows.ChaoticSilence

Title Paragraph
This article does not have a title paragraph. Please refer to guidelines on writing an article. 172.201.134.2 01:16, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

Why just internet?
This is linked to as part of general censorship, but the article is internet censorship only...

Talk on References
Most of the early contributors on this page are citizens of Pakistan who are experts on the history of the Internet in their country. Their ID's are freely visible on the history page. I would suggest that their contributions to this knowledge is reference enough for this information. If you were to find actual references, it would likely be articles written by them or their associates or quoting their expertise. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.57.163.136 (talk) 00:42, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

YouTube
Pakistan has now blocked YouTube.com over because of 'anti-islamic' movies being shown on there until further notice. Story on the link. http://news.uk.msn.com/Article.aspx?cp-documentid=7623557 81.99.24.95 (talk) 21:25, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

I've described the YouTube blocking incident in some detail at my blog, including links to detailed technical descriptions of what happened and how YouTube responded, including links to Wikipedia-appropriate reliable sources. http://lippard.blogspot.com/2008/02/pakistan-takes-out-youtube-gets-taken.html Lippard (talk) 03:15, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

Https://wwww.youtube.com is working from ip address 39.55.195.25 (Pakistan Telecom). It has been working since Aug 14. Anasim (talk) 19:52, 17 August 2014 (UTC)


 * Is there a reliable third-party source we can cite? -Jeff Ogden (W163) (talk) 21:48, 17 August 2014 (UTC)


 * Not yet. In fact, looks like HTTPS is no longer working from 39.55.195.25. It would appear that powers that be plugged that hole. Anasim (talk) 00:25, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not banned in Pakistan
(I wrote this on a different article, but it seems relevant here so I am including it.)

I asked a journalist friend in Pakistan to confirm reports that Wikipedia is banned there - she reports quite firmly that it is not. Our article repeats this apparent untruth based on a report in Fast Company which cites a Bloomberg story which doesn't mention Wikipedia, and this associated press story which says "The regulatory body said it has blocked more than 450 Internet links containing offensive material. It is unclear how many of the links were blocked in the last two days. Access to the online encyclopedia site Wikipedia and the photo sharing site Flickr also was restricted Thursday."

I have not yet confirmed the details, but it seems likely to me that rather than saying that Wikipedia has been banned (it hasn't been) we may want to follow the AP story more directly. Notice that the AP says "450 links" and Fast Company says "450 websites" - it seems possible that some pages of Wikipedia are blocked/filtered in Pakistan (such as this article, for example) but the entire website is certainly not blocked.

Although of course we shouldn't get involved here in original reporting, perhaps some reporters from Wikinews could be asked to do some legwork to find local people in Pakistan to give a detailed report on access to Wikipedia at the present time.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 15:07, 22 May 2010 (UTC)


 * Note: Some additional info from additional independent reliable secondary sources:

Pakistan restricted access to Wikipedia and banned viewing of certain pages on the website in the country on May 20, 2010, according to Fast Company, The New York Times, Radio France Internationale, The Express Tribune, The Washington Post, Computer World, Newsweek, Agence France-Presse, and the Financial Times. Agence France-Presse noted, "The Pakistan Telecommunications Authority (PTA) extended a ban on Facebook, ordered by a court until May 31, to popular video sharing website YouTube and restricted Wikipedia." The Washington Post reported, "At least 450 sites, including Wikipedia, were also cut off by midday" on May 20. Radio France Internationale quoted the editor of The Friday Times, who stated, "They’ve banned not just Facebook, now you have YouTube. They’re also blocking Flickr, I’ve just heard that they’ve blocked Wikipedia ... eager beavers sitting in the PTA and in other ministries are just going on and blocking sites." The New York Times reported that the ban, "also included certain pages on Flickr and Wikipedia". According to Radio France Internationale, and Newsweek, pages were blocked on Wikipedia by the Pakistan agency due to what the government described as "growing sacrilegious contents". Ahmad Rafay Alam of the Pakistani English-language daily newspaper The Express Tribune commented, "the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority has taken it upon itself to block Wikipedia, among other things." Reuters reported on May 20 that "websites, including Wikipedia and Flickr, have been inaccessible in Pakistan" since the previous evening. According to Agence France-Presse, a representative of the organization the Internet Service Providers Association of Pakistan, Wahaj us Siraj, stated "Wikipedia had been blocked" in the country.

Thank you for your time. Cheers, -- Cirt (talk) 19:54, 28 May 2010 (UTC)

Keeping e-mail for at least three months?
I'm going to delete this unsourced item:
 * The PIE is also used to keep track of incoming and outgoing e-mail, which by parliamentary order are kept for a period of at least three months.

Does anyone know if this is true? Is there a source, law, order, or regulation we can cite? Jeff Ogden (talk) 20:52, 16 June 2011 (UTC)

The Article is Out of Date
This article needs a complete re-write, and is not reflecting the current situation in the country. There is a massive censorship and blockage carried on by PTA and Semi private communication company PTCL, and a software called NetSweeper is being employed very strictly.182.183.199.6 (talk) 14:23, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

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