Wikipedia has been banned in Pakistan over its blasphemous content.
The popular online encyclopaedia has been blocked in Pakistan by the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) for failing to “block/remove sacrilegious content” within the allotted 48 hours, a spokesperson stated on Saturday.
As per a tweet by the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority, “PTA has degraded Wikipedia services in the country on account of not blocking/removing sacrilegious contents.”
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It further read, “Wikipedia was approached for blocking/removal of the said contents by issuing a notice under applicable law & court order(s). An opportunity of a hearing was also provided, however, the platform neither complied by removing the blasphemous content nor appeared before the Authority.”
PTA spokesperson Malahat Obaid told Dawn.com that the main reason for the ban’s imposition was a failure to follow the orders. He continued, “The decision can be revisited once the website removes sacrilegious content that has been detected by the regulatory authority.”
Yesterday, the Wikimedia Foundation, the charity that runs Wikipedia, said it “does not make decisions around what content is included on Wikipedia or how that content is maintained”.
It continued, “By design, this is done to make sure that articles are the outcome of many individuals working together to decide what information should be provided on the site, resulting in richer, more balanced articles.”
Activists have criticised the government’s move to ban Wikipedia in Pakistan.
Wikipedia is a “crowd-sourced platform where anyone with an account may change articles, which they can also do instead of blocking the entire website,” tweeted Usama Khilji, a digital rights activist and columnist.
This is not the first instance when Pakistani authorities have objected to content on Wikipedia and this is also not the first time the authority has taken notice of objectionable content on the platform. The PTA had sent warnings to Google Inc. and Wikipedia in December 2020 for “disseminating sacrilegious content.”
From 2012 to 2016, YouTube was restricted in Pakistan. The nation has also frequently restricted the hugely popular video-sharing app TikTok in recent years due to its “indecent” and “immoral” content.