Slashdot Mirror
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.
Pakistan blocks yet another place for failing to obey diktats from the stone-age. Maybe they'll just discard everything with origin from the Renaissance onwards.
Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. - Voltaire
There are two main issues here. The first is the rights of a country to limit internet access in line with their own laws. This could be holocaust denial in Germany, incitement to murder in the UK or copyright infringement in the US, the religion aspect has nothing to do with it (and given that no-images-of-the-prophet-Mohammed is a central tennant of Islam intended to prevent idol worship it's perfectly understandable).
The second issue is whether it's worth trying to block the offending sites when it's unlikely to be effective and there are pre-existing legal mechanisms. If I was to call for the murder of all members of $ethnicMinority then that's illegal in the UK, so should the UK government's response be to block Slashdot or to prosecute me? I'd argue that the latter is far more effective in every way, whilst protecting the freedoms of other Slashdot users.
Should I do the same but breaking the rules of another country (eg holocause denial is legal in the UK but not Germany) then it's down to the pre-existing extradition channels.
Please consider this account deleted, I just can't be bothered with the spam anymore.
I actually read TFA, hoping to see what, exactly, pissed them off, but apparently Pakistan's not telling.
Either Pakistan found a way to get around the Streisand Effect (if you just mass-block an entire large site and never say which particulars caused it, it gets no publicity), or they just wanted to censor it and found blasphemy to be a decent excuse.
I don't know of anyone that holds child pornography in such reverence that they will threaten with death anyone who depicts it. False equivalency is false.
=Smidge=
No. We're allowed to be disgusted, just as Muslims are allowed to be disgusted. What we aren't allowed to do is go rioting through the streets, stabbing people, killing the artists, burning down embassies, and causing actual physical harm to others in retaliation. When was the last time you saw a Jew do that over a holocaust cartoon?
Depict MLK as an ape
See the reaction in the US (and elsewhere).
Minor mistake on the statistics. It's four in ten women in turkey, not one in four. That's 40% of women. And those who think this is limited to muslims in "those" countries -- sorry. 6 out of 10 Imams in Sweden were recently found to be giving out illegal advice on domestic abuse. And that's according to Swedish state tv. I don't see why so many in the west insist on shoving their heads in the sand in the name of "tolerance" (as if domestic violence was something that deserved tolerance). If a holy book tells people to do something, there is a pretty good chance they will.