Slashdot Mirror
Pakistan To Scour Google, Yahoo For Blasphemy
sv_libertarian sends in this excerpt from an AP report:
"Pakistan will start monitoring seven major websites, including Google, Yahoo, and Amazon, for sacrilegious content, while blocking 17 other, lesser-known sites it deems offensive to Muslims, an official said Friday. The moves follow Pakistan's temporary ban imposed on Facebook in May that drew both praise and condemnation in a country that has long struggled to figure out how strict a version of Islam it should follow. ... 'If any particular link with offensive content appears on these websites, the (link) shall be blocked immediately without disturbing the main website,' [said Pakistan Telecommunication Authority spokesman Khurram Mehran]."
It must be sad to so terrified that your religion will collapse if you don't control what the adherents read. Any religion that can only survive by censorship is a religion deserving of nothing but absolute scorn and the sincerest wish that it end up in the trash heap of worthless ideas.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
That would be hilarious, not offensive. I'd buy swag from whatever company vengefully blocked them back.
I wonder if this will spark Anonymous into trolling them? I mean more than they are already.
Are you capable of defending yourself, or are you simply hiding behind the protection of your government? Are you always certain it will be able to protect you? Will you never leave its influence? Are you foolish enough to believe that once you leave its borders, it will go to the ends of the earth to protect you? Hint: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/37907132/ns/world_news-mideastn_africa/
Yeah, really, what a job description!
"Actively go out and find stuff that offends and appalls you"
I hope they get paid well to have to essentially work with insults all day long.
What metrics will they use to track their job performance? If they don't find enough offensive content, will they have to create their own to justify their existence?
If you're running a website, is there a way to detect visitors who are (probably) in Pakistan (like, is there a specific block of IPs that is assigned to Pakistan), to redirect them to a page explaining that you'd rather not risk getting a death sentence from Pakistan, so you are not willing to serve content in that jurisdiction?
I say everyone should just create an Internet Embargo against Pakistan if they're going to be like that. Cut em off.
If refusing to consider ideas or facts that conflict with your preconceptions means you're terrified, than most people on Slashdot must be constantly wetting their pants!
This raises an old question.
Who is more mature;
the person who says empty words to anger another,
or the person who lets nothing but empty words anger them?
Not defending the act of insulting another for fun, just defending the right to do so. And to point out that you took the bait as the OP intended.
You think that the radicals have it in for Americans/Europeans who "insult islam?" That's nothing. Find somebody who is of an islamic background and opposes the idiocy of the radicals, and they might as well have a target on their head. At least the others have the excuse of being ignorant infidels... so only doing something fairly big/obvious gets them targeted.
Yeah, really, what a job description! "Actively go out and find stuff that offends and appalls you"
I think they might need an Islamic equivalent of shabbos goy.
Actually, this world might be a better place if Islam was actually dragged BACK to the 11th century. This is not a joke: islamic worldview actually used to be very progressive at about that time, or little bit later (12th and 13th centuries). Scholars of that era would consider many current fundamentalist priests to be a disgrace, non-intellectual caricatures of earlier spiritual leaders.
I like paying taxes. With them I buy civilization -- Oliver Wendell Holmes
- Robert Heinlein, Notebooks of Lazarus Long
But if I were to light the shrubbery on fire, name the hero, "Moses," and call the wand "The Staff of Aaron," you'd know that this is the absolute truth, the Word of YHWH, to be accepted uncritically as historical fact. (Exodus chapters 3 and 4, to be specific.) Or, at the very least, it's some sort of utterly profound morality play from which deep meaning can and should be drawn.
And you'd be a complete and total blithering fucking idiot for doing so.
Quite possibly. But people have a right to choose their own religion (except in many Islamic countries, where you don't).
It seems to be that only the followers of one religion seem to respond to blasphemy with violence, riots & beheadings.
After all, a major movie (Davinci Code) claimed that the main premise of Christianity is a fraud. Did Christians riot around the world? Burn down movie theaters & their local video stores? After all, the vast majority of the world's wealthy & powerful people are Christians.
Nope, didn't happen.
Simply put, Islam, as practiced in most of the world, is an intolerant barbaric religion that is still stuck in the 7th century and has no place in civilized society.
You have hit the nail on the head.
However, instead of "youth unemployment", the questions our politicians are trying to dodge are a bit more worrisome:
1: "How is it that a person, who had himself declared clinically insane to dodge Lawsuits, is now our elected President?" (You might gape, but it's true.)
2: "You said our electricity problems would be solved by April, yet we have rolling blackouts (for up to 36 hours in some places!), when will the Govt. solve that?"
3: "Why isn't the Government obeying the Supreme Court and re-opening the Swiss Court cases against the President and his cronies?"
4: "Why are most of our Senators, MNAs and MPAs (National/Provincial level Congressmen) having fake degrees?"
5: "When will we stop having to stand hours in line to get Sugar, Flour and other necessities?" (Incidentally, checkout this vid I made while I was standing in line for Sugar: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pSTbkO4vyRs)
There are other, equally worrisome, questions, but as you can see, any of these questions, if dug deep, can be used by the (equally corrupt) Opposition Parties to break their already weak Coalition Govt.
So the solution is simple: "Why are you taking out rallies against us, Look, the Danes drew a cartoon/Facebook insulted him/[Insert Diversion Here], go there! Yes, Burn those evil western overloads, (even though they are the ones giving us the loans that we squander to buy our Jets), Burn them!!!"
I am an ACCA student. Got a query on Accountancy/Finance? Maybe I can help!