IT was on Sept 12, 2012, that the then prime minister ordered the Pakistan Telecommunications Authority to take action regarding an offensive video uploaded on YouTube. Some other countries felt similarly and a handful, including Egypt and India, invoked international agreements to have Google, YouTube’s parent company, remove access to this video from within their borders, leaving the rest of the site intact. But Pakistan, lacking both the paperwork to achieve this and the technological ability to selectively filter internet content, resorted to blocking access to YouTube in its entirety. Since then, there has been much back and forth over the issue, with several assurances that the site would be restored. Indeed, on one occasion this was very briefly done, only for cravenness to set in again. On Sunday, however, Information Minister Pervez Rashid said that the ban would soon be lifted.

This is welcome news. Less encouraging, though, is the proposal of how this would be achieved. Mr Rashid said that software had been developed to filter out content. This leads in a dangerous direction. First, who is to say what might be deemed inappropriate by this or any future government? The sphere of what Pakistanis are not permitted to access online can grow at any time and by any degree, seriously jeopardising internet freedoms and civil liberties. We have not forgotten, after all, the scramble that the government of the day was thrown into when a video appearing to show a certain political party stuff ballot boxes went viral. Second, the software may well also allow the government to snoop on people’s private online lives. Much more wisdom lies in sorting out the paperwork. One is the signing of a Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty with the US (since Google is a US-based company), so that Pakistan’s laws are given due consideration in such matters. Another is to formulate legislation on liability in terms of objectionable content uploaded by private users, which would pave the way for companies such as Google to localise. This matter has been touched upon by the Cyber Crimes Bill, on which the state has been working for some two years. Without doubt YouTube must be made accessible, but healthier mechanisms should be adopted to make it so.