Slashdot Mirror
YouTube Blocked In Pakistan
kokoko1 submits this snippet from The Telegraph, which reports that Facebook isn't alone — now YouTube, too, is being censored in Pakistan. "The blocking of YouTube comes a day after a Pakistani court blocked Facebook amid a growing row over a competition on the social networking website to design cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad." Update: 05/20 18:58 GMT by T : According to an anonymous reader, Wikipedia and Flickr are out, too.
Update: 05/21 12:11 GMT by KD : And now add Twitter to the blocked list. This post claims that more than 1,000 sites are being blocked in Pakistan.
Update: 05/21 12:11 GMT by KD : And now add Twitter to the blocked list. This post claims that more than 1,000 sites are being blocked in Pakistan.
In a poor country with only a fraction of the people being affected by blocking the internet, the critical mass for any push for change is absent.
>-|-O
In other words, these idiots have turned Mohammad into an idol by their actions and words, and so are violating the very law they seek to enforce on others.
I am not an expert on the Islamic faith, but I rather suspect they turned their backs on Mohammad when they started blowing up women and children.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
none of the profits are supposed to be immortalized
No no, you're getting your hemispheres mixed up---we immortalize profits in the West. They immortalize prophets in the East.
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If only fluff pieces like this could bring attention to the more real issues in Pakistan. Like the recent assassination of Benazir Bhutto, the first and only head of a muslim state. It's unfortunate in the extreme that the country's court has now been more effective and interested in this youtube and facebook ban than it's pursuit of Benazir's killers.
This ban is not the only thing that has been more important to many of Pakistan's leadership either. Since Benazir's widow became president, the entirety of the country's opposition parties, courts and media have given more attention to corruption charges against Benazir's widow than to the pursuit of her killers.
Former dictator Musharraf is a leading suspect as a co-conspirator in her assassination. The latest news from him is his intent to return to Pakistan, at the head of a new political party that will include the PML-Q. The PML-Q is one Pakistan's strongest conservative Islamic parties, and one the ones advocating the strongest for this ban, for charges of corruption against Benazir's widow, and one of the quietest about her assassins still running free.
Well, I guess that's my small part in trying to draw attention from the 'fluff' over this ban to the real problems it is a symptom of.
You're looking at this from the point of "those Muslims are trying to tell us what we can say".
Are you telling me that's not what's happening?
If you seek to understand the average Muslim perspective though, conduct the following though experiment: that you are black and some is chanting "nigger nigger nigger nigger" in your face...
What about this concept is so hard for you to get?
Yes, people have the right to do that in the free world. Freedom of speech is worthless unless it also means freedom to say things you disagree with.
Except, of course, they don't have the right to do it right in your face. Which this isn't. No one is forcing you to go to that particular Facebook page out of thousands -- but you are drawing far more attention to it than it deserves by blocking all of Facebook because of this one bit that's offensive.
In fact, someone did exactly that on Facebook, and the US hasn't blocked Facebook.
Don't get mad, you don't have to right to tell people what they can say.
Those are two separate issues.
First, it's entirely up to you whether or not you take offense. Take the "nigger" situation -- you could get angry, or you could feel sorry for the poor troll who has nothing better to do than harass you, or you could ignore them altogether.
Second, there's nothing wrong with taking offense, or telling people what you think they should say. Where it crosses the line is when you start actually preventing them from saying it at all (by censoring an entire network because of a few offensive posts), or when you respond to someone's mere expression with violence, or threats of violence.
I don't see why that is such a hard concept to get. Hate speech is legal, and the best way to deal with it is to counter with calm, rational discourse, or to ignore it altogether and thus deny its power. Death threats are not legal, nor should they be tolerated, and actions like censorship are in an entirely different category.
It's not an analogy. I'm saying this is what it *feels* like for the average Muslim. Note I say average Muslim, not extremist.
And here's how one Muslim chose to respond.
Moreover, I'm not sure whether it should feel that way at all, if you understand your own religion. Think about it: Why did Mohammed forbid depictions of himself? To prevent just what happens every time you follow his name with "Peace Be Upon Him" -- to prevent himself (or any other prophet) from being deified, from being worshiped over Allah. Merely drawing the prophet should be no more blasphemous to you than it would be to draw Jesus Christ, who, as I understand, is also held to be a prophet.
This issue has the potential to radicalize more people than Al-Qaeda ever dreamed of.
No, they do that themselves. Mere expression cannot make you hate unless you allow it to.
I'm not asking you to care, I'm asking you to understand.
Well, I am asking you to care. Watch the DawahFilms video I linked to. Don't just shrug this off, use this as an opportunity to prove us embarrassingly wrong, and to set an example to your brothers and sisters about how Islam truly can be a religion of peace.
Or you can be silent, allowing your louder extremists to speak for you. Or you can actually defend censorship and barbarism. Your choice.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
In other words, these idiots have turned Mohammad into an idol by their actions and words, and so are violating the very law they seek to enforce on others.
I am not an expert on the Islamic faith, but I rather suspect they turned their backs on Mohammad when they started blowing up women and children.
It all depends on how you interpret the religion, or rather how your religious leaders interpret it, since ordinary people are always asked by religious leaders to take things on "faith". (The degree to which you are asked to take things on faith differs, but this underlies every major religion as far as I can tell).
Faith is code for disconnecting your mind and "believing" what you are told without quesiton. This is why religion - even "moderate" religion - can be so damaging. You surrender your ability to reason about things to people that have their own agendas. Whether you're asked to believe in the son of God saving us from sin, the great prophet Mohammed showing us the way, the wise Buddha teaching us how to be at spiritual peace, or the Xenu and space aliens hardly matters. With it comes instruction on how you must live your life, and what you should do, and the faithful may not question the "true word" of whomever.
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer