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India-Pakistan
‘Mistaken’ content regulation
2019-06-05
[DAWN] THE recent inadvertent blocking of certain websites such as Bloomberg and BuzzFeed in Pakistain makes for a concise study in the sinister nature of systems of arbitrary power ‐ as well as their silliness. The mechanisms for content regulation are straightforward enough: government and state institutions (often the interior ministry) send directives to the PTA (solely vested with the power to regulate content under the Pakistain Electronic Crimes Act) listing websites purportedly hosting illegal content; the authority, in turn, proceeds to direct internet service providers to block these websites. As reported in this paper on Monday, however, when contacted for more information on why these recent website restrictions (corroborated by multiple sources, including a copy of the directive) were imposed in Pakistain, the PTA initially denied blocking these particular sites, yet later issued fresh orders directing ISPs to unblock them.

Though the mistake originated from another department, what this absurdity of errors illustrates is how the PTA has no internal checks and balances with which to distinguish between legitimate and illegitimate requests, choosing instead to implement them en masse. Nor does it publicly disclose what web content has been restricted in Pakistain, or why ‐ making it that much harder for the public to scrutinise and challenge the legitimacy of their grounds. Adding to bureaucratic abstruseness is one of several deliberate flaws in Peca’s design: the use of vague and highly subjective terminology such as ’objectionable content’. This has created a climate in recent years in which internet freedom has consistently deteriorated, with all sorts of content ‐ including political, even satirical ‐ having been censored. Fundamental rights to freedom of speech and to a free press do come with the caveat of ’reasonable restrictions’, and most of our right to information laws are subject to a prohibitively long exemption list. However,
a good lie finds more believers than a bad truth...
it would be a subversion of the spirit of the Constitution to presume that citizens are not entitled to an open debate on where the line of ’reasonability’ ends, and a draconian censorship dragnet begins.
Posted by:Fred

#2  Poor liberal bastards. Being liberal in Pakistain and not getting visas to the US must suck. They want to live like humans, and have to parley with their islamic state to treat them as such.

"What ? Why ?! Constitooshun ? Humhh?! Blasphemy !!"
Posted by: Dron66046   2019-06-05 17:17  

#1  All the news they need to know, on P0rnhub.
Posted by: Skidmark   2019-06-05 05:45  

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