The Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) has blocked Wikipedia after slowing entry to the web site for 48 hours over content it considers “sacrilegious.” A PTA spokesperson informed Bloomberg that the company has blocked the web encyclopedia for failing to take away mentioned content inside the previous couple of days.
The telecom authority revealed on February 1st that it approached the web site with a courtroom order to take away “blasphemous” materials from its web site. After Wikipedia did not comply or seem earlier than authorities, the PTA degraded entry to the web site for a few days and threatened to dam it fully if it did not adjust to its calls for. The company did not publicly checklist the Wikipedia entries it would not need folks in Pakistan to see.
Wikipedia was approached for blocking/removing of the mentioned contents by issuing a discover below relevant regulation & courtroom order(s). An alternative of listening to was additionally offered, nonetheless, the platform neither complied by eradicating the blasphemous content nor appeared earlier than the Authority. pic.twitter.com/6dWRcbxHGB
— PTA (@PTAofficialpk) February 1, 2023
As TechCrunch notes, Pakistan has been making an attempt to exert extra management over content discovered on numerous digital platforms. In 2020, the PTA briefly banned TikTok because of “immoral and indecent” materials earlier than the short-form video app promised to average clips in accordance with Pakistani “societal norms” and legal guidelines. It’s price noting that the Muslim-majority nation has stringent blasphemy legal guidelines, and the punishment for breaking them contains life imprisonment and even dying.
In a weblog submit, the Wikimedia Foundation confirmed that Pakistan blocked Wikipedia and different Wikimedia tasks based mostly on its inner site visitors studies. “In Pakistan, English Wikipedia receives more than 50 million pageviews per month, followed by Urdu and Russian Wikipedias. There is also a sizable and engaged community of editors in Pakistan that contribute historical and educational content. A block of Wikipedia in Pakistan denies the fifth most populous nation in the world access to the largest free knowledge repository. If it continues, it will also deprive everyone access to Pakistan’s knowledge, history, and culture,” the Foundation wrote. It’s now calling on Pakistan’s authorities to revive entry to the Wikipedia web site within the nation.
PTA’s spokesperson informed Bloomberg that the company continues to be in talks with Wikipedia officers and that the company will think about unblocking the web site if it fully removes sacrilegious content.
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