The decision by a US appeals court on Wednesday ordering Google to remove the controversial film ‘Innocence of Muslims’ from the video-sharing website YouTube is welcome news for people in Pakistan. The film triggered mass outrage and violent protests around the country, far in excess of its aesthetic value or content. The Pakistani government now has no legitimate excuse to continue the ban, which is extremely unpopular with the public and with activists wary of the state’s penchant for censorship. Not having legitimate reasons has never stood in the way of governments, but people working to overturn the ban can use this case to highlight two facts. The first is that banning YouTube was an unnecessary measure that violated constitutional rights to free information and speech, while empowering extremists to promote their violent narrative. The second is that bans and outrage don’t work — rational argument does.

The judges hearing the case rejected Google’s assertion that removing the film amounted to a prior restraint of speech that violates the US Constitution, on the ground that one of the actors involved in the production was misled about the portrayal and credit she would receive for participating. The plaintiff, Cindy Lee Garcia, objected to the film after learning it incorporated a clip she had made for a different movie. How much simpler would Pakistan’s case have been if, instead of hyperbolic, unconstitutional, and ultimately uninformed outrage and bans, the government had found legal grounds to challenge Google’s constitutional objections. In the case of Ms Garcia and YouTube, releasing the film without her knowledge or consent amounted to a violation of her rights, which the appeals court recognised. Moreover, Pakistani authorities could have negotiated an agreement with Google, as other countries have done, to limit certain content in Pakistan in case it inflames religious sentiments.

The previous and current governments’ hypocrisy with regard to the ban is clear. If either government felt so strongly about the film, they could have spent the last two years investigating the film’s legality and its release, citing statutes including incitement to violence, hate speech, or in this case illegal appropriation of another person’s creative property. Instead they chose to declare a day of protest, which caused millions in property damage, and ban a popular website, causing a great deal of resentment among the internet using public. If the government insists on acting as a ‘defender’ of Islam, it should also take that job seriously and effectively pursue its objectives, instead of making the public victims of its shortsightedness. It is better left to the public to defend their own faith as they see fit, since clearly the government cannot do so.

Daily Times

WASHINGTON: A US appeals court on Wednesday ordered Google to remove from its YouTube video-sharing website an anti-Islam film that had sparked protests across the Muslim world.

By a 2-1 vote, a panel of the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals on Wednesday rejected Google’s assertion that the removal of the film “Innocence of Muslims,” amounted to a prior restraint of speech that violated the US Constitution.

The plaintiff, Cindy Lee Garcia, had objected to the film after learning that it incorporated a clip she had made for a different movie.Representatives for Google could not immediately be reached for comment.

Actress Cindy Lee Garcia had proved the need to remove the video from YouTube, the appeals court concluded, in part because of ongoing death threats since it sparked violent protests after being first aired by Egyptian television in 2012.

“This is a troubling case,” Chief Judge Alex Kozinski wrote. “Garcia was duped into providing an artistic performance that was used in a way she never could have foreseen.”Garcia sued after she discovered she was in the video, after efforts to persuade Google to take it down from YouTube were repeatedly rebuffed.

The actress had been cast in a minor role in a film called “Desert Warrior,” and paid $500 by director Mark Basseley Youssef, but the movie never materialised, according to court papers.

The actress discovered her scene had instead been used in the anti-Muslim film, which generated worldwide attention and was at first cited as a cause of the fatal attacks on the Libyan embassy in Benghazi.

In her suit, Garcia maintained that YouTube’s unrivaled popularity gave the film a broad audience, and that she had a right to get it removed because she had been misled by the director and retained copyright protections to her artistic work.

Google argued that taking the video down from YouTube would be futile because it is now in widespread circulation, but the 9th Circuit disagreed.

Judge N. Randy Smith dissented, finding that Garcia did not have a clear protection against the use of her work and that an injunction against Google goes too far. Google can ask the 9th Circuit to rehear the case with an 11-judge panel.

Cris Armenta, a lawyer for Garcia, said she is delighted with the decision.“Ordering YouTube and Google to take down the film was the right thing to do,” Armenta said in an email. “The propaganda film differs so radically from anything that Ms Garcia could have imagined when the director told her that she was being cast in the innocent adventure film.”

The News

By: Ayushman Jamwal

Even though Pakistan has enjoyed one full term of a democratically elected government, followed by a successful election last year, its citizens are struggling to fully enjoy one of the basic tenets of democracy – the freedom of expression.

The Pakistani state has been in regulation mode since the former PPP government banned Youtube after the movie ‘Innocence of Muslims’ sparked outrage and protests across the Muslim world. Even with a change of guard at the Centre, the video-sharing site has remained blocked till this day. The Pakistan government is currently in talks with Google over localising YouTube in the country, hence aiming to formalise a regulatory mechanism to ban material it deems unfit. In May last year, a Pakistani band released a satirical song on the video sharing site Vimeo criticising military generals which went viral. This in turn led the authorities to block the site in Pakistan. Last year, reports also emerged of restricted access to Tumblr in regions of Balochistan and Sindh and a ban on Viber in Karachi, Hyderabad and Rawalpindi. Even the popular Internet Movie Database faced a temporary ban in November after a directive from the government. The same month, the government also banned the online short film, ‘The Line of Freedom’ by American filmmaker David Whitney, that criticized the Pakistan army for human rights atrocities in Balochistan. The government employed focused censorship by specifically targeting pages with discussions, reviews and information associated with the film.

In addition to this, the Pakistan government is preparing to acquire net regulation technology to effectively monitor content on cyberspace. Last month, the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority submitted a proposal to the Ministry of Information Technology to import the tech from China. Last year in May, the Canada based think tank Citizen Lab released a report which indicated the Pakistan government bought net surveillance technology from the Canadian firm Netsweeper. According to the report, the technology has been installed on the Pakistan Telecommunication Company Ltd network, the country’s largest telecom network for “political and social filtering, including websites related to human rights, sensitive religious topics, and independent media.” The report also alleged that ISP’s in the country were resorting to DNS tampering to block websites.

This is a dire situation for the netizen community of Pakistan. The social media has created a niche for itself in many spheres including communications, economics, activism, and education. Across the world, it has expanded the public sphere, liberating voiceless masses in many countries. It has offered a platform and medium for citizens to engage with democratic and societal narratives, clashing with mainstream ideas to negotiate and re-negotiate public opinion on a range of issues.

Such restrictions indicate Pakistan’s struggle to fully embrace democracy.

For those like myself who yearn for India-Pakistan brotherhood, the free social media is essential for one side to understand the other. No filtration, no packaging, the constant sharing and exchange of information and opinion is key to building bridges after decades of jingoism and propaganda. I have learnt so much about Pakistan from my friends across the LoC through the social media which has led me to believe that it is our destiny to be strong, cooperative neighbours. While Facebook and Twitter are still untouched, curtailing content on those platforms would be a serious blow to that vision.

The Pakistani government must cease to make the mistake of testing the sanctity of Islam and nationhood against the opinions of citizens. God and the freedom to express are equally sacred as they are both chapters of a universal humanist doctrine. For the nation to fully shed its dictatorial past, it cannot negotiate with the freedom to express and most importantly the freedom to disagree. It is essential not just to protect an ideal, but to preserve and embolden the conscience of the citizenry.

IBN Live

A year on, there have been mixed reaction to the ban. Most Pakistanis initially agreed with the ban as the blasphemous content was offensive and insensitive. However, as the ban persisted, some groups have voiced concern over continued ban. With the change in government this June, petitions were made to the new Prime Minister to lift ban. Student bodies and some members of the academia have lobbied that countries like Pakistan who straddle in lower echelons of education empowerment of its citizens have everything to gain from massive free online education. They have pleaded that present moribund state of education can be partly alleviated if online education is utilized effectively and intelligently. Their logic is that at present, Pakistan cannot do so because of a state sponsored ban on sites like You Tube, which are at the helm of distributing this material online. The reasoning is sound but government has to see the broader picture.

Last week, the State Minister for Information Technology, Anusha Rehman, announced that the ban on YouTube would be removed in the coming few days after the sitting of Inter-Ministerial Committee. She disclosed that Pakistan is testing URL filters, which will enable it to selectively block controversial content instead of banning the entire service. The technology is reportedly provided by Pakistan Telecommunication Company, which will offer the services to the government for a year and will charge for the service after this duration. The URL filters are also said to have been tested, blocking a list of 4,000 objectionable URLs. Clarifying that the decision could not be made by her Ministry alone, she declared that the final decision to lift the ban would be made by the Inter-Ministerial Committee, which will also be responsible for preparing the list of blocked URLs, which will be handed over to Pakistan Telecommunication Authority.

The new government, which is still less than ninety days old and under normal circumstances, would have been enjoying the honeymoon period, where the opposition and media give them a fair chance before criticizing them harshly. Unfortunately, from day one, there has been an onslaught of terror attacks and numerous other developments, which have left the new incumbents in the corridors of power shell shocked. Running helter-skelter to find solutions, the government of Mian Nawaz Sharif has been forced to make judgmental errors by acting in haste. The crucial decision of lifting the ban on You Tube must also be thought through, lest a hurriedly taken pronouncement may cause more damage and regret.

The decision of blocking YouTube was also in line with the Honorable Supreme Court directives/observations, orders of the Prime Minister and in the larger national interest. This scribe recommends that if at all the ban is to be lifted, Google must first apologize to the Muslims for causing them mental anguish. It should remove all clippings of the movie “Innocence of Muslims” and “The Innocent Prophet” from YouTube and promise to respect the emotions of the Muslim Ummah. Essentially, Google, and YouTube should get registered with PTA for being available in Pakistan and it should pay taxes. It has been observed that social media websites are earning tremendous revenue from Pakistan thus Federal Board of Revenue should take action against those search engines/ social media websites who are earning from Pakistan but evading local taxes.

It is also important that Google should respect the legal clauses of Pakistan and before being permitted to operate in Pakistan, it should enter into formal agreements with the relevant Ministry for legalizing its services. Respecting the need of research scholars, the academia and student body, favorable agreements may be signed with Google, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and other Social Media Networking Sites but these must include Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty (MLAT) and automatic filtering software. In order to safeguard the mental health of Pakistan by discouraging pornography and block anti state content, especially those that incite separatism, hatred against specific sects/minorities or the armed forces of Pakistan, the Government should implement physical/electronic filtering of internet data like that adopted by a number of other countries, which the State Minister for I/T was alluding to. Simultaneously, OIC should take up a case with UN for drafting a resolution not allowing any person to misuse the Holy Prophet’s (PBUH) name and make movies / caricatures on him, Umhat-ul-Momineen RA, Khulfa-e-Rashideen RA and Sahaba. Necessary legislation as was carried out by Jews on laws related to denial of Holocaust should be adopted. The OIC should setup central or regional hubs of filtering units. OIC and Pakistan should ensure that evil attacks on Islam do not occur both internally and externally.

It would also be prudent to develop Pakistan based equivalent of YouTube to benefit the public. Own versions of Search engines, Video sharing platforms and Networking sites be designed like Google, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter etc. In light of the above suggestions, perhaps further anguish to the faithful can be avoided by the machination of Islam bashers and those suffering from Islamophobia while enemies of the state can be kept at bay from misusing the social media for their nefarious designs.

Pakistan Observer