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Pakistan briefly blocks Twitter

Kathryn McConnachie
By Kathryn McConnachie, Digital Media Editor at ITWeb.
Johannesburg, 21 May 2012

Pakistan authorities reportedly blocked Twitter in the country on Sunday, over the proliferation of messages that were deemed to be offensive to Islam.

According to reports, it is believed the reason for the ban was tweets referring to a 2010 competition on Facebook to draw and submit images of the Prophet Muhammad. Facebook was banned for about two weeks at the time.

The tweets were reportedly part of a campaign to encourage freedom of expression in the Muslim community. While Facebook blocked the content for Pakistan users, Twitter allegedly refused to remove the offending tweets.

Other reports, however, claim the block may have actually been a result of a new image filtering service the Pakistani authorities were testing. Authorities are yet to provide confirmation.

The block was later lifted by the Pakistan Telecommunications Authority (PTA), after an order from prime minister Yousaf Raza Gilani, and no clear reasons for reversing the decision were given.

Activist organisation Human Rights Watch called the ban “ill-advised, counterproductive and futile”.

Pakistan has a history of blocking sites it deems inappropriate or offensive, and last year the PTA instituted a ban on “obscene” text messages. The ban included a list of over 1 600 words and phrases. The country's telecoms operators were instructed to filter and block all offending text messages before being sent to the intended recipient.

The list, issued in both English and Urdu, includes expletives, slang and what the PTA deems “indecent language”. The list has some people scratching their heads, as apart from the usual swear words, even the words “deposit” and “headlights” found their way onto the banned list.

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