Pakistan Orders ISPs To Block 429,343 Websites Completely, Because There's Porn On The Internet

It appears that efforts to censor the internet globally continues to spread, with the latest being a report out of Pakistan that the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) has told ISPs that they need to start blocking an astounding 429,343 websites at the domain level as quickly as possible, following a Supreme Court order to the PTA about the evils of porn online.

The move apparently follows a recent order by the Supreme Court wherein the telecom sector’s regulatory body had been asked to “take remedial steps to quantify the nefarious phenomenon of obscenity and pornography that has an imminent role to corrupt and vitiate the youth of Pakistan”. PTA said it has decided to take pre-emptive measures to block such websites at the domain level to control dissemination of pornographic content through the internet as it provided ISPs with a list of 429,343 domains to be blocked on their respective networks.

The order apparently was issued just a few weeks ago, which raises the question of how the PTA put together a list of so many domains so quickly... and how carefully that list has been vetted. The answer, of course, is that it hasn't been vetted. And that means that tons of perfectly legitimate content is about to get blocked in Pakistan. Remember, this is the same country that once blocked all of YouTube, and did so in a way that basically knocked Pakistan off the internet, while also blocking YouTube throughout many countries across Asia. Let's hope mistakes of that nature aren't made again. Even so, it's pretty obvious that mistakes will be made. First, that list is going to include tons of sites that aren't pornography. Is there a way to appeal? Who knows! Second, it's likely that in the process of blocking "at the domain level" some may choose to block IP addresses of certain sites, not realizing that many IP addresses are shared among multiple domains, meaning that lots of other sites may get sucked up as well. And then there's the issue of what good will this do anyway. People who really want to access porn on the internet won't have trouble finding it. I'm pretty sure there are more than 429,343 websites with porn on the internet, and even if there weren't, I'm guessing that VPNs and proxies work just as well in Pakistan as they do elsewhere. Permalink | Comments | Email This Story