Bloomberg reports that Pakistan’s Telecommunication Authority (PTA) blocked Wikipedia over sacrilegious content. The Pakistani government ordered the popular encyclopedia to remove blasphemous content earlier this month. During the 48-hour period, the website servers were also downgraded by PTA.
It is unclear what content the Pakistani officials want Wikipedia to remove. Both government officials and Wikipedia are in talks to resolve the issue.
The verge attempts to reach out to Wikimedia, the company that owns Wikipedia, but they did not comment on the matter. In the past, the Pakistani Government has banned many websites and apps. According to research conducted by OpenNet Initiative, the Pakistani Government blocks sites that spread violence, spread anti-Islamic content, or threaten it’s internal security.
In Pakistan, YouTube was the first major website blocked because of anti-Islamic and blasphemous content. YouTube was banned in 2013 and remained banned for three years. Pakistani Government officials unblocked YouTube in 2016 after Google, which owns YouTube, launched a specific version of the website in the country.
A major ban was imposed on TikTok multiple times when a court in the country ruled to block the app. The ban on TikTok was imposed after people complained that it contained immoral and indecent videos. Unlike YouTube, TikTok was not banned for as long as it was for YouTube.
However, Wikipedia has been banned in several countries before. There had been bans on the popular encyclopedia in other countries as well. The site’s editor was arrested in Belarus last year, and Russia threatened to block the site in the country if the site did not change the information regarding Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Aside from Russia, Turkey, China, and Myanmar were the other countries that previously blocked Wikipedia.
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