KARACHI: The restriction on youtube.com is into its third year but uncertainty on when and how it would be unblocked and divide on justifications behind the sanction continue to hover around the world’s largest video sharing website.

Islamabad banned the social video-sharing platform on September 17, 2012 after its parent company Google had turned down Pakistan’s request to remove the blasphemous movie ‘Innocence of Muslims’, which caused uproar among Muslims across the world and sparked violent protests in some countries including Pakistan.

Proponents of internet freedom criticised the blanket ban of YouTube, saying it was a violation of basic civil rights. Viewing certain content is a personal choice and the government should not intervene, some say. On the other hand, there are those who say blasphemous content not only hurts the religious sentiments of Muslims but can lead to violence and the solution remains in blocking the material. The government took the latter road.

The YouTube saga started afresh last week when some Internet Service Providers restored the website in parts of Karachi for unknown reasons, whereas there is no change in the official stance. The news of the website’s availability spread quickly across the country. Scores of people took to social media and expressed their joy while many others shared their frustration for not being able to access it.

The government’s stance on the subject may not change and people may continue to be divided on YouTube’s accessibility. However, it makes little difference because, while the website remains blocked on paper, its content is available through various platforms.

Despite the ban, YouTube was always available to Pakistanis. Some people used proxy servers but, things became easier after local entrepreneurs, sensing the need, launched their own portals that allowed direct access to YouTube’s content.

Pakistani websites, such as playit.pk, ytpak.com and the recently-launched tubemuse.com provide direct access to YouTube’s content. However, there is a twist — they heavily focus on filtering blasphemous and objectionable content that Google originally refused to do.

“The videos are served directly by YouTube. What we do is that we block the objectionable content on a daily basis” said Hasan Saleem, the entrepreneur behind tubemuse.com, launched a month ago.

The website got 70,000 hits on the very first day and gets 40,000 daily views on average. The site reached a peak of 175,000 hits last week while 300 movie downloads took place the week before. The website’s country ranking improved from 2,316 a week ago to 1,631 on Saturday, according to alexa.com.

These statistics certainly indicate how quickly the users are adapting to alternatives of YouTube. These portals keep a low profile and do not market themselves but remain well received.

While TubeMuse is a recently launched video sharing portal, ytpak.com has been catering to millions of Pakistanis for over a year now. The Lahore-based portal was launched a year ago and now boasts 1 million daily page views with 200,000 videos watched on the platform every day.

Ranked in the 60s, ytpak.com – if current trends continue – will be among the top 10 websites of Pakistan, according to its founder Erfan Ilyas.

“Our portal scans the internet and pulls data [videos searched by users] from the fastest server that is available. It searches YouTube, Daily motion and other such platforms and serve it to users,” Ilyas said, explaining how the website works.

Responding to a question, Ilyas said his group founded the website for professional needs and not for profit.

The overwhelming public reception of the website, however, increased bandwidth costs and now they are looking to increase revenues to make up for server costs.

With these platforms aggressively focused on blocking blasphemous material and providing access to useful content, the official ban on YouTube may not restrict users from accessing the world’s largest video sharing website.

The writer is a staff correspondent

Game changer

The single biggest success of Pakistani video sharing platforms, such as ytpak.com and tubemuse.com was providing direct access to YouTube’s content while simultaneously blocking the objectionable content.

Before launching the site, TubeMuse prepared a list of content that was declared objectionable by the government and local courts. They had it blocked and now keep themselves updated to block similar content on daily basis. They do it through an automated code that filters objectionable content.
Ytpak.com, too, filters blasphemous content with a solution that uses intelligent key words, according to Ilyas.
“Our solution gives ratings to key words and when the ratings reach a particular point, the video is blocked and all of this is done automatically,” Ilyas said, adding that it is impossible to manually block objectionable videos that run into the millions.

Express Tribune

There was a recent news item suggesting that the ministry or governmental authority or whatever had declared that the ban on YouTube was not going to be lifted in Pakistan any time soon. The reason given was that improper content could not be removed from it. By improper content we all know what is meant. Primarily, one particular video is what this ban is all about. Here I think it is important to point out what is otherwise generally known: those really interested in accessing YouTube have already figured out how to do it, ban or no ban. And I am sure that these people are definitely not viewing the aforementioned video. If they really wanted to watch it they have probably done so already. The question then is: why the continued ban on YouTube?

Anybody who uses the internet regularly, especially to read foreign newspapers or any other source of information, inevitably comes across material that could be considered blasphemous. Concerning the notorious cartoons that created quite a stir in Pakistan a few months ago, most foreign newspapers published copies of those cartoons. Interestingly, The New York Times was one major newspaper that avoided doing so. The point really is that much that can be considered blasphemous is available to people in Pakistan even with the YouTube ban. However, as I was researching for a short article on the early history of Islam, I tried to search for ‘Muhammad’. To my utter disbelief, the Wikipedia entry on Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) was blocked, obviously by the Pakistani side. And that did make me wonder who decides to block which site on the internet.

It is conceivable that as the mullahs keep on agitating against access to anything on the internet that is identifiably uncomplimentary towards Muslims, we will end up with bans on an increasing number of internet sites. However, the mullahs, in their ignorance about the internet, do not realise that blocking any number of sites does not prevent access to the sort of information they find objectionable. The only way to assure that nobody living in Pakistan can read any ‘blasphemous’ material on the internet is to prevent any access to the internet. Perhaps that is the direction we are going in, the so-called slippery slope towards complete censorship. But then we will also have to ban things like satellite television, which provides unfiltered foreign content that could also be quite reprehensible.

The next question about preventing access to inappropriate material brings us to the problem of Pakistanis travelling abroad and those Pakistanis who live in foreign countries, especially in the Godless west where blasphemous material is freely available. In this matter, the mullahs will have to decide pretty soon about the ‘purity’ status of those Pakistanis who have been exposed to such material while abroad and who did not try to kill all those responsible for propagating such material. Should such people even be allowed to re-enter Pakistan in this befouled state? Here, it is obvious that the only way to prevent ordinary Pakistanis from exposure to objectionable stuff is to prevent them from leaving the country. Only people who have been certified by the mullahs to be entirely incapable of either viewing or understanding any form of blasphemy (the totally ignorant?) should be allowed to go abroad. And even then somebody, preferably a mullah, must be with them to keep an eye on them.

This might sound excessive but I still remember a picture from a UN meeting during the heyday of the Soviet Union. The picture showed the Russian representative in front with one person watching him very carefully and another person watching the watcher very carefully. Clearly such surveillance will be necessary for any Pakistani who does go abroad. And if there is any evidence that such a person wilfully and deliberately indulged in watching forbidden materials then that person must be forced to return to Pakistan immediately and face justice. This could open up an entirely new reason for demanding political asylum while visiting any country in the European Union or in the United States and Canada since, on return to Pakistan, a person who willingly indulged in watching forbidden material could be executed urgently.

I can just imagine the hordes of Pakistanis in any of the above countries getting their picture taken with a ‘blasphemous’ cartoon prominently displayed next to them, putting that picture on social media and then demanding asylum. Even though I claim no expertise in such ‘legal’ matters, I am sure that no civilised country will deport a ‘foreigner’ back to a country where he or she might be subject to the death penalty for a crime that is not even considered a crime in the host country. Though I would not be surprised if they somehow made an exception for Pakistanis. Our Pakistani ‘elites’ who frequently frequent countries where blasphemy runs rampant must also be looked at very, very carefully. Clearly such persons must be water boarded to find out if they ever wilfully and deliberately watched blasphemous material while abroad and then punished appropriately. Fortunately, this will probably rid Pakistan of almost the entire leadership of all our political parties. If nothing else that would be great.

Finally, about our impressionable youth. Clearly they must be prevented from any access to the internet lest their fragile minds are contaminated by ‘inappropriate’ material. More importantly, none of these young people should be allowed to go abroad for education. We all know exactly what sort of things they will see and learn about while they are supposedly getting an education. Purity of the fragile Pakistani mind is definitely more important than the inevitable contamination by an advanced education in the Godless west. And, yes, I have a question for our mullahs: how do you figure out that something like a cartoon or a video is blasphemous without first wilfully and deliberately reading, seeing or watching it?

Daily Times

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