Pakistan blocks Youtube

A PEEVED Pakistani government yesterday ordered the country's 70 ISPs to block Pakistanis from accessing Google's popular video website, YouTube, for hosting what they called "blasphemous web content and movies."

The dodgy content is reckoned to include the Danish Muhammad cartoons which have resurfaced since their publication last year. The cartoons had led to widespread Muslim protest, 50 deaths and attacks on three Danish embassies. Also miffing the mullahs is a trailer for an upcoming film by Dutch lawmaker Geert Wilders, making Islam out to be a fascist religion that incites violence against women and homosexuals.

But in what seems to be a bit of a mix up by Pakistan Telecom, Pingdom reports that the wrath of the Pakistani government was felt around the world on Sunday, as users in Germany, China, the USA, Russia, the UK, Australia and many others suffered an hour and 34 minutes of Youtubelessness when Hong Kong Internet Service provider PCCW distributed the PTA's hijacked IP redirection by mistake. This meant that people trying to get their regular fix of YouTube laughs or porn got error messages instead.

It's not the first time that touchy regimes have had their egos bruised by videos hosted on YouTube which show them up. The Thai, Turkish, Brazilian and Moroccan governments (to name but a few) have all blocked YouTube various times since its launch.

Some find the Pakistani move surprising, however, as Pervez Musharraf, the Pakistani President, seemed, according to TechCrunch, to be quite a fan of the internet video giant, whose recording booth at the World Economic Forum in Davos, last month, he visited "so many times that people stopped noticing."

Convener of the Association of Pakistan Internet Service Providers, Wahaj-us-Siraj told Reuters that "They [the government] asked us to ban it immediately ... and the order says the ban will continue until further notice." µ