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Pakistani Government Plans to Monitor Google, YouTube for 'Blasphemous Material'

by Amar Toor on June 28, 2010 at 10:15 AM

Pakistan Monitoring Google, YouTube
The Facebook-fueled, 'Everybody Draw Mohammed Day' controversy may have subsided, but the Pakistani government is still doing its best to make sure it never flares up again. According to Reuters, Pakistan's Ministry of Information Technology has placed seven major websites under stronger governmental surveillance in an attempt to guarantee that none of the sites contain "blasphemous material." Pakistan's list of flagged sites includes heavy hitters like Google, YouTube and Yahoo!, while Facebook and Twitter are conspicuous in their absence.

Latif Khosa, an IT adviser to the prime minister, confirmed that the agency would not unilaterally block major search engines or websites, for fear of jeopardizing constitutionally guaranteed rights to information. "The constitution of Pakistan ensures access to knowledge, information and education to all citizens of Pakistan. These are the basic rights of the people of Pakistan and Internet is a major source of it," Khosa says.

Still, the mere fact that Pakistan is stepping up its Web monitoring will likely evoke comparisons to China, in its ongoing campaign to censor anti-governmental sites within its borders. The crucial difference, however, is that China blocks facts and information, and does so without truly consulting its citizenry. Islamic blasphemy, on the other hand, is an entirely separate case. Images of Mohammed, as we've made clear before, don't contribute to any larger global debate, and, in practice, serve only to incite anger and violence in an already tumultuous corner of the world.

Unlike some Chinese surfers who may have never been exposed to a circumspect view of Tibet or Taiwan, Pakistan's online populous is entirely aware of what blasphemy looks like and that it exists online. Considering the country's vociferous reaction to the Mohammed Facebook page -- and the violent way in which Pakistanis reacted to the 2006 Dutch cartoon controversy -- blasphemy is obviously something the majority of Pakistanis simply doesn't want to see. The country's plan to monitor the entire Web is certainly ambitious, and it may prove impossible for authorities to completely seal their country's digital borders. But, as long as Pakistan does so without jeopardizing the flow of other (more important) information, and keeps the demands of its people at heart, it may have every right to pursue its agenda. [From: Reuters]

Tags: censorship, everybodydrawmohammed, google, government, islam, IslamicLaw, Mohammed, pakistan, religion, socialnetworking, top, web, Yahoo, youtube

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