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Wikipedia ‘Unblocked’ in Pakistan, PM Forms A Committee To Regulate ‘Objectionable’ Content

In addition to restoring the website, Pakistan’s PM constituted a new committee to deliberate on regulating ‘objectionable content’ posted online.

What's the news?  Access to Wikipedia in Pakistan was restored on February 7, 2022, after a direction to unblock the website was issued by Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif. Why was Wikipedia blocked? We had previously reported that Wikipedia was blocked in the country for 48 hours by the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA). Wikipedia was accused of displaying certain "blasphemous" content on its web pages. Wikipedia responded to the blocking order by saying that they do not make any changes to the content on Wikipedia pages in order to maintain neutrality. Here's why Wikipedia was unblocked After Wikipedia was blocked by the PTA, this matter was placed before the Prime Minister of Pakistan. He constituted an interministerial committee for preliminary examination of the matter, which constituted the Minister for Law and Justice, the Minister for Economic Affairs and Political Affairs, and the Minister for Information and Broadcasting. All these details were shared by Marriyum Aurangzeb, Pakistan's Federal Minister for Information and Broadcasting on Twitter. This committee opined that Wikipedia was a "useful" site and blocking the site in its entirety "was not a suitable measure to restrict access to some objectionable contents/sacrilegious matter on it". The committee noted that the “unintended consequences of this blanket ban… outweigh its benefits”. What next?  The government does not plan to keep this issue on the back burner. In addition to restoring the website, the Prime Minister also constituted a new committee under para 17(2) of the Rules of Business, 1973, to deliberate on regulating…

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I cover privacy, surveillance and tech policy. In my reporting, I try my best to present the most relevant facts, and sometimes add in a pinch of my thoughts.

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