Pakistan Bans 1600 Words and Phrases For Texting

Hugh Pickens writes "In a move reminiscent of George Carlin's Seven Words You Can Never Say on TV, the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority has handed down a ban on about 1,600 terms and phrases it has deemed obscene and told carriers they have seven days to block the words on their networks, or face legal action. 'The filtering is not good for the system and may degrade the quality of network services — plus it would be a great inconvenience to our subscribers if their SMS was not delivered due to the wrong choice of words,' says an official at a one of the telecoms. The list includes such words and phrases as 'idiot,' 'monkey crotch,' 'athlete's foot,' 'damn,' 'deeper,' 'four twenty,' 'fornicate,' 'looser,' and 'go to hell,' among others. There are also various double entendres included in the ban such as 'beat your meat' or 'flogging the dolphin.' Mohammad Younis, a spokesman for the PTA, says the ban is 'the result of numerous meetings and consultations with stakeholders' after consumers complained of receiving offensive text messages. 'Nobody would like this happening to their young boy or girl.'"

Comments

Looser?

[Anonymous Coward]

That's going to make giving instructions difficult. I hope no-one's working with an IPL over IM over there.

Re:Looser?

[Vastad]

Why would a country so paranoid about having bad things said about the Prophet Mohammed only include Jesus Christ on the list as a blasphemy

Ummm...because if they censored the words "Prophet" and/or "Mohammed", that would be censoring a pillar of the Muslim faith? How would the righteous and moral doublegood citizens of Pakistan discuss the most important person in their lives? Or is this a test....?

Jesus is a prophet but not THE Prophet in Islam, so that's OK to make sure the infidels don't get to sell that silly concept outside of their strange cult.

More importantly though, this is actually a good thing. Why? Because we can look to Urdu - the national language of Pakistan - becoming the source of an entirely new and titillating orgy of euphemisms and slang that will defeat this list and that can never adapt effectively to counter it. The authorities have unwittingly introduced chaos and creativity into the very evolution of their national language. In less than a year, I make a gentlemen's bet that there will be their equivalent of the Number 1 Top 40 hit by their equivalent of Justin Bieber or Duffy belting out lyrics about "big tracts of land" and "brown roses with small petals" that will have the older generation pleased at the agricultural bent of the song.....and the young'uns practically creaming themselves in laughter.

Didn't work in China

[Anonymous Coward]

Pakistani users will have 1600 new euphemisms by the end of the week.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/River_crab_(Internet_slang)

Darn

[Anonymous Coward]

But what do they really think this is going to accomplish, other than invention of a new vocabulary?

Controlling communication helps controlling people

[Hentes]

"Don't you see that the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of thought?"

What could possibly go wrong?

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

Has something that wasn't a terrible plan ever been implemented by people who use the phrase "consultations with stakeholders" with a straight face?

I applaud Pakistan

[Jeremi]

... for doing everything they can to ensure that the range of Pakistani euphemisms and double-entendres expands to ever newer and more creative territory. Let a thousand flowers bloom!

Re:Oh that's sure gonna work

[Opportunist]

And as we all know from the early attempts of the MAFIAA to curtail the sharing of music by disallowing the names of certain songs to be part of a file being shared, people will invent creative ways around it. 1600 or 16000 variants, people will find some that will slip through and the info will get shared quickly.

Censorship doesn't work. People route around it.