After Facebook, Pakistan blocks YouTube
By IANSThursday, May 20, 2010
ISLAMABAD - After banning social networking site Facebook, Pakistan Thursday blocked the YouTube site in what was described as “a bid to contain blasphemous material”.
“The Pakistan Telecommunication Authority has also blocked the popular video sharing website YouTube in a bid to contain blasphemous material,” Online news agency reported.
The blockade came hours after PTA directed Internet service providers to indefinitely stop access to Facebook because of an online competition to draw caricatures of Prophet Mohammad.
PTA sources said it was facing severe difficulties in blocking the sites as modern technology is required to do so but that in the next two days, all websites and their links carrying blasphemous caricatures would be blocked.
According to PTA, the blocking of the two sites would cut up to 25 percent of the total Internet traffic in Pakistan.
The authority has set up a crisis cell to monitor website content and said a toll free number, 0800-55055, and an e-mail address, complaint@pta.gov.pk can be accessed to notify it of URLs where objectionable material was being carried.
