By: Rafay Mahmood <\/p>\n
KARACHI: The government\u2019s ban on video-sharing website YouTube has been protested on Twitter and Facebook time and again by everyone from ordinary citizens to journalists and musicians in the past four months.<\/p>\n
While most have tried to live a life without YouTube \u2014 either by using Vimeo and Dailymotion \u2014 or around it by using proxies, the Pakistani music industry has suffered largely in silence. One group of artists has realised the importance of such a video-sharing platform, and has come up with a unique way to protest the ban \u2014 YouTube Aloud, a collaborative effort between Omran Shafique (Momo) from Mauj, Hamza Jaafri from CoVEN and Pakistan\u2019s child prodigy Usman Riaz.<\/p>\n
\u201cYouTube Aloud is a social media page where we [and the Facebook community] express our thoughts about how this ban is having a negative effect on society,\u201d Riaz tells The Express Tribune.<\/p>\n
\u201cEverything that I have learnt and achieved is a direct result of having a close connection to the online realm,\u201d says Riaz. \u201cYouTube can be the reason I became a TED Fellow. I would have never had a chance to speak on the TED stage or perform with Preston Reed \u2014 the man whose videos I used to watch on YouTube when I first picked up the guitar \u2014 if I didn\u2019t have access to YouTube.\u201d<\/p>\n
As a representative of the group, Riaz raises the question: \u201cDoes it make sense to burn down an entire library just because you don\u2019t agree with the contents of one of its books?\u201d<\/p>\n
In December, Riaz had posted a message on his Facebook page, asking other artists such as Adil Omar, Natasha Humera Ejaz and Mole if they would be interested in holding a marathon concert in support of YouTube. He wrote: \u201cIt will do two things. (1) It can be the press conference that Hamza Jaafri had in mind to discuss the negative aspects of this ban on the artistic community (which I am sure we all whole-heartedly agree with) and (2) it can result in a lot of artists coming together to perform and show content.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHear! Hear! We are all with you on this one!\u201d posted Meesha Shafi, in response to Riaz\u2019s post. Others reacted in the same spirit, but so far, the concert has not taken place.<\/p>\n
Musicians Zohaib Kazi and Zoe Viccaji recently wrote an open letter requesting Interior Minister Rehman Malik to restore the site. A line from the letter reads: \u201cYouTube is a medium that provides a platform for both. It is a library of today and an archive for tomorrow \u2014 an archive from which we will be missing\u201d.<\/p>\n
Even Junaid Jamshed, the former Vital Signs member turned entrepreneur, feels YouTube should be restored. According to Jamshed, YouTube is a source of research and information. \u201cI think we have already made our point by banning it \u2014 now it should be restored immediately,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is a free medium of information for people and plays a pivotal role in religious education because a large number of people go on YouTube to read the Quran and other religious texts,\u201d explains Jamshed. \u201cWe are a Muslim nation and will not tolerate or watch anything blasphemous, even if it is present on YouTube. As a Muslim Ummah, we know what is right or wrong for us.\u201d<\/p>\n
However, not everyone agrees that the YouTube ban is impacting our music industry in a negative way. Senior musician Asad Ahmed, who has been in the music scene for three decades, says, \u201c[YouTube] should be restored but I don\u2019t think it is harming the music industry.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s funny that [people are] saying that,\u201d he chuckles. \u201cAround 50% of Coke Studio\u2019s viewership is outside Pakistan and the real YouTube fans in Pakistan already have Spotflux or hotspot shield working for them.\u201d<\/p>\n