Pakistanis have been cut off from YouTube for two years now following a ban put in place by the PPP-led government. Through the efforts of local NGO Bolo Bhi, Dawn.com highlights the impact of this loss as narrated by lawmakers, experts and other stakeholders.
"There isn't a law or set of regulations or rules that allow PTA or MoIT, or the IMC to actually go ahead and regulate [internet] content. Consequently what we see is adhocism as nobody has thought through this"
Babar Sattar, Lawyer
“A: censorship is wrong and B: the people, the viewers are smart enough to sift fact from fiction...so this kind of approach is harkening back to the past, which has no relevance for the present and the future”
Syed Mushahid Hussain, Senator PML-Q
“At the end of the day you have a Rs30,000 earning IT administrator babysitting [filtering] software, how do you make sure that is not getting exploited?”
Khurram Zafar, Adjunct Faculty, Information Technology University (ITU)
“A lot of our [University of London Law] lectures are embedded through YouTube and its inaccessible in our country and I find it frustrating that I can’t even study the subject that I want to”
Saadullah Awan and Ahmer Jamil Khan, Law students at SZABIST
“It is because we fear information. We fear all this technology. It is becoming very difficult for many within the government, whether it is civil bureaucracy or military bureaucracy, to control what is being said on the internet...it has become a joke now”
Bushra Gohar, Former ANP Member of National Assembly
“Do we want to prevent our youth from benefiting from the information that is available from video sharing platforms like YouTube?"
Dr Farooq Sattar, MQM Member of National Assembly
“The IMC committee's terms of references must be clear, and any decisions they make should be public. It cannot operate under this shadow of confidentiality and secrecy”
Wahaj us Siraj, Convenor ISPAK (Internet Service Providers Association of Pakistan)
"If I was a serious investor, I would scratch my head and say every second day they are shutting down a network. A one day shut down is a billion, billion and a half rupees of loss...doesn't make me want to invest several billion dollars..."
Salman Ansari, IT & Telecom Expert
"Yes there is a sense that young people should be protected from certain content that is available on the internet, but let the parents do it. That's what they're there for. Let the teachers do that. It's not the government's job"
Jehan Ara, President of Pakistan Software Houses Association (P@SHA)
