It has began to confirm that Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) is least enthusiastic about creating a procedure that could open (unblock) YouTube in Pakistan. This was noticed these days in Lahore High Court, in a situation,‘Pakistan Internet Freedom’ (Bytes for All Vs Federation of Pakistan).
Even on its 9th hearing, the stake holders engaged in this situation were not absolutely existing. The associate of Google, whom the LHC had instructed to appear in its last hearing, did not come to throw light on the problem of blasphemous material on YouTube and possible actions to eliminate it.
Deputy Attorney General (DAG) advised court that Google did not reply to the demand and apparently has no interest in this situation. Previously, it was learned that a legal representative of Google was coming to appear before the court.
Bytes for All, the petitioner of the situation, advised that PTAwas misleading the court and that it had the mechanism to filter the unwanted blasphemous and anti-social content on internet.
Petitioner argued,
“While PTA has the technical capacity to block individual URLs to keep the rest of the platform accessible, they had been denying their ability to do so.”
A filtering solution is already in practice at Pakistan Telecommunication Company Limited (PTCL) who hired the technology from a Canadian firm Netsweeper.According to petitioner, Netsweeper technology is being applied in Pakistan on PTCL for reasons of governmental and public filtration, such as sites of secessionist motions, delicate religious subjects, and separate media.
Several times, govt of Pakistan and its regulating systems have declared that they announced a specialized ability to prevent particular URLs in Pakistan and for that they require a filtration software. Other than this, govt associates have been challenging Google to start its workplace in Pakistan so that lawful matters could be managed in a better way.
An official of the ISP while commenting on the situation said,
“it is very easy to provide complete access to YouTube archive and filter the unwanted content at the same time. If government is seriously willing to resolve the issue, ISPs can install the filtering software on their end. This will ensure filtered access to entire YouTube”.
It is exciting that govt is not willing to act upon any of the available alternatives. Rather, it established a four member committee for examining 8 million URLs to create sure blasphemous material no more exist.
Added the official,
“Government is just trying to save the PTCL from making an investment into buying a filtration solution. Based on its 200 giga bits traffic, it will need to invest some USD 20 million whereas, for a smaller ISP the cost is USD 0.1 million”.
Last 30 days, Peshawar High Court, while hearing to a identical situation, had instructed govt to create Google start its workplace in Pakistan.
Honorable Justice Mr. Mansoor Ali Shah of Lahore High Court shown commitment to resolve the issue in the coming days and adjourned the court till July 25.
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