Pakistan Blocks Twitter Over 'Blasphemous' Images

Diggester writes with this news from the Times of India: "Pakistani authorities on Friday further widened the crackdown on websites with blasphemous contents by restricting access to popular social networking website Twitter. Pakistani users were unable to log into Twitter after internet service providers blocked access to the site." The block was prompted by Twitter's refusal to take down messages promoting a cartoon contest to which the Pakistani government objects for its depictions of Muhammad. This end-run falls right in line with the pessimistic reaction from Reporters Without Borders to the Pakistani court decision calling Internet censorship unconstitutional.

Comments

Re:Whoah... hold up

[Samantha Wright]

The story is that this ban is illegal according to a recent Pakistani court ruling, not that they're upset about depictions of Muhammad. After the Danish cartoonist thing, that's kind of old hat.

Everybody Draw Mohammed Day

[Nova Express]

I almost missed that it was back again today. I participated in 2010, but nobody seemed to be doing it in 2011. Glad to see it's back, and I would have missed it if Pakistan hadn't brought attention to it.

Everybody Draw Mohammed Day serves three important purposes:

1. It reaffirms that the First Amendment is alive and well, and that the United States legal system cannot, should not, and will not knuckle under to transnational demands for Sharia-compliant suppression of "blasphemy" as defined by oppressive theocratic Islamic states.
2. To prove that in the 21st century censorship is self-defeating, as it only draws more attention to whatever is being censored than ignoring it would.
3. To provide so many targets for would-be jihadists to assault that the give up due to the futility of the task. Theo Van Gogh is dead and Molly Norris is still in hiding. Standing in solidarity with them proves to jihadists that using violence to achieve political ends in a free society is counter-productive (something people eager to attack Chicago cops with Molotov cocktails evidently haven't learned).

Re:Blocked for being post-mediaeval

[K. S. Kyosuke]

How can he be "theophobic" when he does not believe in all that crap? You can't be afraid of something you know that does not exist.

Re:Blocked for being post-mediaeval

[AliasMarlowe]

. . . theophobic (yep I just coined a word) . . .

No, you didn't. You just discovered a word you had never heard before.

And the AC used it wrongly, too. Theophobia is the fear of one or more gods, and is therefore an attribute of a pious follower of some religion, and would likely be approved by that religion. More likely, the AC meant religiophobic, as religiophobia is the fear of religions.

I am from Pakistan, Twitter is working for me.

[ryzvonusef]

I am from Pakistan, Twitter is working for me.

My ISP is the local telecom monopoly(PTCL), so I doubt it's a case of selective application by ISP's.

Re:Blocked for being post-mediaeval

[shmlco]

Hijacking the thread here. The Twitter ban has been lifted.

“Pakistan’s telecommunications regulators shut down Twitter for about eight hours Sunday because the social networking site would not remove content the government found objectionable to Muslims, but the nation’s prime minister stepped in to reverse the ban, officials said.”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/pakistan-blocks-then-restores-twitter-access/2012/05/20/gIQAPqBPdU_story.html