Pakistan watching Web for ‘blasphemy’
Forget the Great Firewall of China; it looks as though the Great Wall of Pakistan is the new cause for concern.
May saw Pakistan ban Facebook from being accessed due to the row over a group calling for everyone to draw depictions of the Prophet Mohammad. The ban was lifted two weeks later after a court ruled that Facebook had cleared out the “blasphemous” content. But some Muslims took this as their cue to go elsewhere.
Now, according to BBC News, Pakistani authorities have announced plans to monitor the Web for content that is in any way anti-Islamic. 17 sites are being banned outright, while big names such as Google, YouTube, MSN, Bing, Yahoo, and Amazon will be continuously watched.
I respect the right of Muslims not to have Islamic laws mocked, regardless of whether there is any sense to them or not. But stopping citizens from accessing websites in this way is a crude and ignorant way to deal with the problem. Whatever happened to letting people make their own minds up?
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June 25th, 2010
Heh, that is the muslim way of treating stuff. This is completely stupid and a medieval way of solving problems. I am not racist or anything, but I think the muslim religion is the only religion still so stuck in the old days. Even the jewish religion is *a bit* more advanced, if I may.
Anyways, I think religions should not even exist or should at least lose all their power in our current world.
June 26th, 2010
The internet is like having a little bit of freedom right in front of you. For the most part you can go where you want, do what you want, and be whoever you want.
If they want to regulate it out of sheer stupidity then that is their problem, but its also not fair to the people in that country. It’s stealing a piece of whatever little freedom they have.
The bigger problem here is that first it will happen there, then they will try to force it on others. I’ve seen it happen before with muslims and frankly I don’t like it. I enjoy my freedom and I don’t want anyone else encroaching on it in such a manner.