Is That Censorship We See?
Posted by Absar | Posted in Society | Posted on 18-09-2006
Tags: Internet
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I recently read on Dr. Alvi’s blog about the formulation of a committee in Pakistan that will decide what websites are to be disallowed on the national Internet system, based on it’s contents. As alias (of the ill-fated PNEC Blogged fame) commented, there might as well be a committee to watch over this committee.
This idea sounds absurd to me, especially when considered in light of President Musharraf’s (extremely) vocal expression of his belief in free media. I vividly recall him saying (roughly translated into English):
Niether do these mullas enjoy themselves, nor do they let others. If they don’t like what’s on TV, just turn it off.
Now, it appears, that our President is closing our browser windows for us. I say leave the Internet alone. If I don’t like what website I’m on, I’ll close the window myself. I promise.
its nothing but Big B…Sh..
ciao
I just don’t get it. WTF are they going to block? [p]orn? unsuitable political commentary? religiously-offending cartoons?
Google just gave me 250 million websites for our triple-ex word. Are they going to block those? And the millions of proxy servers around the world? Those too? And the new P2P technology coming up to browse blocked websites? That too. You do understand where this is headed, don’t you? Might as well shut down the internet.
Take this very basic example. People in our college don’t do anything except socialize. On Orkut, that is. So when it gets blocked at college, it takes an hour or so for kproxy.com to get popular throughout the hostel rooms. And BTW, only 3 people on campus know that Wikipedia had been blocked for 2 months too. You are number 4.
Committees banana in ka shughal kaam hai. Paisa bananey ka yeh purana tareeqa hai. More the committees you are a member of, more the money you earn. See that “a MNA’s salary” article that’s being going around the internet these past few weeks.
@alias: Very smart of you to disguise the dirty words
I agree on the tunneling part. There’s absolutely no way you can stop a guy from accessing blocked content on the internet. With the swarm of open ports and sockets you can utilize, it only takes one brain to allow millions to take advantage.
Oh, and I know wikipedia is blocked on campus, but it’s doing fine elsewhere. It’s blocked with MaxCom?
aagay aagay daikho hota hai kia:P
No, I think our college was the only place in the country where Wikipedia was being blocked. [No surprised there!
] Works fine on every ISP I have tried so far.
ah.. and they will block blogger again as well…..
Its not about banning the nude and Indecent stuff, as it was with the TV (They banned Pakistani channels coz dai were broadcasting anti-govt news n opinions and allowed Indian channels and even local cable movie channels on which even Adult movies were being shown as well).
They want u to get involved in all sorts of “entertainment” and forget about the country and wot da govt. is doing.