Filtering internet is nothing new to the world. More than 95 percent of the world markets (where internet is available) filter the internet to make sure that the content available over internet is in-line with their social values and local laws.
Almost every country — from USA to Singapore and from Sweden to South Africa and beyond – filter internet based on their needs and laws.
Some countries block child pornography while others block explicit content or the websites hurting the national agendas of respective countries.
Pakistan does the filtering too. And this filtration (process) is heavily flawed.
Here is the process of blocking a website:
- A website is identified for evaluation (through user reporting or by self determination)
- The Inter-Ministerial Committee evaluates the website
- If website is decided to be blocked then Ministry of Information Technology and Telecom issues a blockade directive to PTA
- PTA issues blockade directive to all ISPs
- and the website(s) or webpage(s) gets blocked
Here are the flaws:
- There are no rules available for allowable or block-able internet content. Get the Rules first, get them quickly, make them public.
- There’s no information/list available (publicly) about the blocked websites
- There’s no information available (publicly) about the reasons a website is blocked, or remedies with which the website can get unblocked
- There’s no way available to challenge IMC’s decision
- No one can report a website for blockade (yes, complaints sent to PTA are turned down)
- There’s no contact information available for Inter-Ministerial Committee, hence there’s no way of reporting a website to IMC
In other words, IMC or Inter-Ministerial Committee is a ghost department (for majority of Pakistanis) that can decide the fate of a website without hearing the viewpoint of website-owner.
Due to such flaws anyone (with powers of course) can go ahead and get a website blocked. Here is an example of how Farooq Awan, then PTA Chairman, had managed to block two websites that had bashed him.
Similarly, some videos against former MD of PTV were blocked in the country without due-evaluation by IMC. YouTube was blocked in the country on orders of Prime Minister, instead of IMC.
Even today a website, i.e. ptclworkers.com is blocked without any apparent reason and there’s no way for the website owner to get it unblocked.
Blocking child pornography won’t bring you criticism, or blocking a website that circulates unconsented pictures or videos of (local) girls will not bring you any bad press. Its the process, method and flawed approach that raises question.
All Government needs to do is to simply devise the rules for internet content as per laws of Pakistan. Publish a list of websites that are blocked and the reasons that are associated with the blockade. Plus a tribunal/committee that should accept reconsideration appeals against blocked website. This committee should review the website again and see if the its still violating the rules or not.
Do it once and for good.
P.S. Following rules and good intent make things easy, or it will take you years just to devise the rules.
well said…
Pk lacks of rules and regulations about filtering data….
Public Will Definately Come to Know weather a Website is Blocked When They will Open a Site and See ” Access Denied “
Yes, but why? For some people, pastebin was blocked. A site that many coders use to share with other coders. Why was it blocked?
What are people afraid of, written porn?
Current govt. and govt. machinery is composed of people who used to buy explicit books and booklets from urdu bazar. In those days, it was a BIG invisible market. Written pr8n is a reality :D
Still doesn’t explain pastebin, unless they can show it was overwhelmingly used for erotica.
All government need to do is simply tell us how much they need to stop the fu*k up :/
Now they are blocking proxy sites
It takes rs 600/month (or less) to set up a VPS and enable a VPN-type proxy. Even better, the source code is out there and easily modified to hide your tracks. One Rs 600 server can handle dozens of users simultaneously.
When there are free VPN servers available, why pay for our own.
because paid ones are better? no?
Yes, paid ones exist that do not watch your traffic or inject ads or anything like that. Al though I am talking about running your own server.
I got a $5/month VPS from Digitalocean.com in their Netherlands DC and use it for all kinds of purposes including as a VPN, development server for testing client projects and Minecraft server lol
Okay thanks
We are not mad to pay for us there are lot of proxy sites. 500 Is my monthly broadband rent and you advising me to pay 600 only for vpn lol
Again, it is your choice. Do you trust the free proxy sites not to tamper or log your internet traffic? You have NO REAL REASON to expect them to be honest. After all, why would they offer anything for free? All the network traffic and hosting costs them money.
Think about it: you have to give them something in exchange for a free proxy use. If they don’t ask you anything in exchange, then maybe they’re selling your information to someone.
Yup it is bcz there is nothing for free. Thanks bro.
Few developed countries filter the net for their political purposes (Singapore is a good example)…most western countries only block child pornography, otherwise they dont have issues with political websites. If that was the case, you’d have Labor governments blocking conservative websites and vice versa.
In Pakistan the process is opaque, arbitrary and politically driven rather than being derived from a set of uniform regulations.
Surely you don’t expect a reasoned balanced post from a guy who cannot bring himself to condemn salman taseer’s murder: bit .ly/18nVcpj
Aw on the disgusting part of Pakistani web again..
Can you point out where I was unreasonable or unbalanced?
And also, pls explain that why you had to relate it with Salman Taseer?
Why is filtering the internet needed in the first place?
Free and uncensored internet for all!
First few lines explain your question.
I heard that youtube is going to open .. is that true ?
I heard that the Dodo is returning.. is that true?
i don’t know about this .. even i don’t know what is Dodo ? can you tell me ? :P
Wow. Even in the age where you can select some text, right-click and search google for it, you expect to be spoonfed.
Dodo was a bird which existed until the 17th century and went extinct because of mass killings by humans. Because of it being one of the best-known extinct animals, it has given birth to the phrase “to go the way of the Dodo” which means to become extinct or obsolete, to fall out of common usage or practice, or to become a thing of the past
So censorship-free internet has gone the way of the Dodo in Pakistan and I don’t see it returning any time soon (just like the Dodo). We’ve been “hearing” of YouTube unblockage since a few years now. Even if YouTube does get unblocked, who knows what other important sites they’re gonna block.
Dodo was a bird which existed until the 17th century and went extinct because of mass killings by humans. Because of it being one of the best-known extinct animals, it has given birth to the phrase “to go the way of the Dodo” which means to become extinct or obsolete, to fall out of common usage or practice, or to become a thing of the past
So censorship-free internet has gone the way of the Dodo and I don’t see it returning any time soon (just like the Dodo). We’ve been “hearing” of YouTube unblockage since a few years now. Even if YouTube does get unblocked, who knows what other important sites they’re gonna block.
USA doesn’t really censor the internet other than a few rare exceptions.. they can just snatch the (gTLD) domain if needed lol
aur do in ke hath mein power. ab kuch nahi hosakta. they’ll abuse this power with no means. and a revolution is needed to get rid of these so called moral guardians.