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Pakistan Degrades Wikipedia, Warns of Complete Block Over 'Sacrilegious' Content (techcrunch.com) 261

Pakistan has "degraded" Wikipedia in the country for 48 hours for not removing "sacrilegious contents" and warned of fully blocking the site if the online encyclopedia fails to comply with the directions. From a report: The Pakistan Telecommunication Authority, the nation's telecom regulator, said Wednesday afternoon that it had approached Wikipedia to block or remove certain "blasphemous" contents by issuing court orders, but said the online encyclopedia neither complied nor appeared before the authority. If the "intentional failure" on Wikipedia's part persists, the regulator will move to block the online encyclopedia within the country, it warned.
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Pakistan Degrades Wikipedia, Warns of Complete Block Over 'Sacrilegious' Content

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  • by Anonymous Coward

    Someone should remove Pakistan from the map

    • by Opportunist ( 166417 ) on Wednesday February 01, 2023 @11:47AM (#63256975)

      India has joined the chat.

      • by irving47 ( 73147 ) on Wednesday February 01, 2023 @12:24PM (#63257141) Homepage

        No, I do not need an extended car warranty.

        No I will not buy you gift cards.

        • No, I do not need an extended car warranty.

          No I will not buy you gift cards.

          When I bought my first car I asked about what happened to the loan if the car was in an accident and written off before I'd finished paying for it. Apparently, I'd have to finish paying off the loan. Then they muttered something about GAP insurance, "but no one bothers with that". So I got it. Only a couple of hundred dollars on the top of the price I was looking at anyway.
          Then, after I'd lost my job and was looking at having to surrender the car and still have about $15000 left to pay... I had a (totally g

          • When the car you owed $15k on was totalled, it wasn't worth nothing, and you had to have it insured anyway. Gap insurance only covers the diference between the market value (ish) that your regular auto insurance company must pay and what you owe on it. Generally, these numbers aren't too far apart, and if you put down a substantial downpayment or made some extra payments, the insurance payout should exceed what you owe on it, making the gap insurance useless and a waste of money, which is why it's so cheap

      • India has joined the chat.

        This is now a designated thread.

    • Re:Another idea (Score:4, Insightful)

      by mspohr ( 589790 ) on Wednesday February 01, 2023 @12:28PM (#63257153)

      Florida is going down the same path with lots of restrictions on what you can do or say and especially teach in school.

    • by tigersha ( 151319 ) on Thursday February 02, 2023 @12:06AM (#63259065) Homepage

      So here goes:

      Fuck Allah. Fuck Allah. Mohammed was a child raping towelhead who got high on Khat in the desert. His hallucinations was not a divine vision.

      And just to make clear that we are are not anti-Muslim bigots, Fuck Christ and Fuck Buddha too.

      Look I am all for respecting other people, but this Muslim bullying is just BS. If they do not respect my beliefs I am goin to do the same to them.

      So here goes again. Fuck Allah. And his mother. Twice on a Sunday.

      • The vitriol I get when I point out that Mohammed married Aisha at 6 and consummated their marriage when she was 9 is alarming.

        Your holy book says so. This is your perfect leader that we can't even look at because he's so perfect. What's wrong, do you not think that's perfect of him? Or are you just mad that the rest of the world thinks that's a disgusting fucked-up person to worship?
  • by Superdad ( 847315 ) on Wednesday February 01, 2023 @11:47AM (#63256977)

    A deity that requires national governments to defend it does sound rather weakâ¦

    • by gweihir ( 88907 ) on Wednesday February 01, 2023 @12:04PM (#63257059)

      Indeed. Or rather very much made up.

    • by Brett Buck ( 811747 ) on Wednesday February 01, 2023 @12:11PM (#63257079)

      Why do you think any deity needs this? Sounds more like a man/men of poor faith, unwilling to let the unknowable plan work out as it should, and taking it upon themselves to intervene. Which is a far bigger blasphemy than some words they don't like in a website.

                BTW, I am not religious at all, but I understand the concepts behind it - most atheists don't, and take simplistic digs at it like your post.

      • I've never seen any evidence of that happening at a national scale.

        History is however full of governments using religion (or other philosophies such as capitalism, communism, socialism, etc) as cover for growing and consolidating their own worldly power. Most of them in fact.

    • by Tablizer ( 95088 )

      > A deity that requires national governments to defend it does sound rather weak

      But He has to manage billions of planets full of immoral liberals, so needs the help of chosen mortals with funny hats & robes.

    • A deity that requires national governments to defend it does sound rather weakâ¦

      Yeah but, if Muslims don't show outrage over stuff like this, they get to go to hell. So thats an incentive eh.
      It isn't as if God can't defend Himself, just that he likes to use this sort of thing as an excuse to torment His faithful.

  • Screw 'em (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Snotnose ( 212196 ) on Wednesday February 01, 2023 @11:50AM (#63256993)
    If these religious nutjobs want to live in the dark ages then their tech and knowledge can stay in the dark ages as well.
    • Yeah, I doubt Wikipedia is going to miss the Pakistan traffic much.

    • Re:Screw 'em (Score:5, Insightful)

      by djbckr ( 673156 ) on Wednesday February 01, 2023 @01:19PM (#63257383)
      The trouble with this statement is that the people "in charge" are the ones oppressing the normal/regular people from seeing things that they could otherwise view. People should be able to see everything and make their own decisions. I wish I could phrase this comment better, but hopefully you get the idea - the religious nutjobs you mention are making things worse for the people they have authority over. It's awful and I wish something could be done about it.
      • ...the religious nutjobs you mention are making things worse for the people they have authority over. It's awful and I wish something could be done about it.

        Something can be done about it. But not from the outside. The people who are being run over roughshod have to decide they're not going to take it anymore. That hasn't happened in Pakistan.

        Christopher Hitchens spent a considerable amount of time in Pakistan, and related the time when a member of the family he was staying with asked him, "Why can't the Americans come in, depose the government, and leave?" The answer to that fills books with a tale of blood and tears, some of it from very recent history.

  • Here's an idea (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Opportunist ( 166417 ) on Wednesday February 01, 2023 @11:52AM (#63257003)

    If your imaginary friend, who is all powerful as far as we know, is really offended by whatever is written in Wikipedia, I guess he should have the power to take care of business and shut it down.

    If a god can't do what a normal human can, why bother worship it?

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by gweihir ( 88907 )

      If a god can't do what a normal human can, why bother worship it?

      Yep. And why even believe it exists.

      But the deeply religious are not rational. Or mature. Or able to fact-check. The worst of the worst the human race has to offer.

      • Re:Here's an idea (Score:4, Insightful)

        by avandesande ( 143899 ) on Wednesday February 01, 2023 @12:16PM (#63257105) Journal
        This is a 500 year old argument you are making, stop patting yourself on the back. I guarantee you say and do things that aren't rational.
        • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

          by Opportunist ( 166417 )

          I try not to. At the very least I avoid doing things that have been pointed out to me as irrational that I also identify as irrational, and I don't go "but X said I should, so I do it anyway".

          • Is listening to music rational? People spend billions of dollars a year on music and concerts... for what? Why even get up in the morning if you are just going to die and the universe turns into lumps of cold iron? Life is not rational.
            • by gweihir ( 88907 )

              Emotional self-conditioning, relaxation, focus. Entirely rational. Also, advancing your skills is entirely rational, especially with the observation of a lot of people being irrational on important questions.

              If you think survival is not rational, however, then you probably need to look at this: Nihilism ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org] ) or this: Depression ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org] )

      • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

        by Immerman ( 2627577 )

        Or in charge of governments.

        You don't climb to worldly power by believing in fairy tales. You use fairy tales to distract the gullible masses while you screw them over.

    • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Tablizer ( 95088 )

      > is all powerful...should have the power to...shut it down.

      If Wikipedia's servers get baked by lightning within the next month, I'll join their sect.

      Back to mortal affairs, WP should provide the ability to mark pages and sections (spans) for country-specific redactions. Yes, I know, censorship of religious criticism is bad policy, but we don't and can't make the rules of other countries, and many will continue to request region-specific redactions. Better than zero access to all of WP.

      • Re:Here's an idea (Score:4, Insightful)

        by Opportunist ( 166417 ) on Wednesday February 01, 2023 @12:21PM (#63257127)

        No. Better would be if people got pissed at their religious nutjobs for screwing with their access to information.

        • It might be better to put a disclaimer on the "problematic" content pages saying something along the lines of "Hey, if you are in Pakistan right now, your government says you can't see this page. So please go away now."

          That should meet the letter of the requirement: IF the Pakistani people respect and obey their government, then they will not be exposed to the "problematic" content. IF they do not respect and obey their government, then that's not our problem.

        • by Tablizer ( 95088 )

          > Better would be if people got pissed at their religious nutjobs for screwing with their access to information.

          Like that's an easy job. Here in the US, conservatives are getting LGBTQ-related library books banned.

          If roughly half your population are zealots and conspiratorial nutjobs, they will often get their way, especially in red states.

          Democracy: 51% of morons tell the 49% sane what to do.

    • Re:Here's an idea (Score:5, Informative)

      by phantomfive ( 622387 ) on Wednesday February 01, 2023 @12:27PM (#63257149) Journal
    • by Targon ( 17348 )
      The real problem is that religious people try to guess what their deity want, but then insist that THEIR way of worship is the only "correct" way. Anyone who prays to a prophet and not their god are the source of the majority of religious problems.
    • Life is just a reality show, then he votes who gets to go to heaven or hell.

    • Jeeze man, he's busy getting people a job, making their ex come back, or helping them pass exams. He doesn't even have time to stop pedophiles, how do you expect him to create a login and edit Wikipedia?

  • I tried to come up more, but that's the only real response.

  • by keithdowsett ( 260998 ) on Wednesday February 01, 2023 @11:56AM (#63257019) Homepage

    ... are not a good mix.

    If Wikipedia responded to all the demands from pressure groups around the world we wouldn't have much of an encyclopedia left. Obvious casualties would be anything relating to evolution, big chunks of history, geography of contested regions, some chemistry, and don't get me started on 'woke' topics. Hell, even the flat earthers might decide to demand that some articles be taken down.

    If Pakistan decides that reading an encyclopedia is blasphemy that's their loss.

  • by RUs1729 ( 10049396 ) on Wednesday February 01, 2023 @11:56AM (#63257021)

    We believe in xyz, and you must too!

    Religion is what empowers otherwise good people to commit atrocities and feel virtuous about doing so.

    • My religion teaches that everybody has the right to say whatever they want about it.

    • by gweihir ( 88907 ) on Wednesday February 01, 2023 @12:12PM (#63257085)

      Religion is what empowers otherwise good people to commit atrocities and feel virtuous about doing so.

      I would strongly disagree that these people are "otherwise good". They are at best mindless tools that fail to act on their responsibility to carefully fact-check before they do anything drastic to anybody else. In my book that counts as evil, even if only in a helper-role.

    • by Tablizer ( 95088 ) on Wednesday February 01, 2023 @12:19PM (#63257111) Journal

      Buddhism is generally far more peaceful than many other large religions because it focuses on self-improvement instead of "fixing" others. Thus, one can be religious without being a forceful dickhead, but I guess too many dig the power trip.

      Some comedian asked, "If we are all Children of God, why does he want Offspring A to punch Offspring B so often? Some 'family values'."

      • by drinkypoo ( 153816 ) <drink@hyperlogos.org> on Wednesday February 01, 2023 @12:45PM (#63257219) Homepage Journal

        Buddhism is generally far more peaceful than many other large religions because it focuses on self-improvement instead of "fixing" others.

        That all depends on who you're listening to. There have been militant buddhists (weird but true) and also the bible says to mind your own shit before hassling other people, but nobody seems to pay attention to that part.

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward

        Buddhists are also known to attack people of other religions too. Some Buddhist countries are very protectionist, like Pakistan is with their religion. They are not exempt from human failures.

      • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward

        Myanmar is a majority buddhist country, the dictator generals are buddhists too...
        Religion is the same everywhere, used to manipulate the masses.

  • Blasphemy?? (Score:5, Informative)

    by dskoll ( 99328 ) on Wednesday February 01, 2023 @12:01PM (#63257041) Homepage

    "Blasphemy"?? What is this, the 1400s or something? I guess it is, in Pakistan.

  • by keithdowsett ( 260998 ) on Wednesday February 01, 2023 @12:04PM (#63257057) Homepage
  • Hmmm (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward

    If an idea can't withstand criticism is it really an idea worth having?

  • Good luck with your theocrazy.

  • Get over yourselves. Most people don't care and never will.

  • by rahmrh ( 939610 ) on Wednesday February 01, 2023 @12:21PM (#63257125)

    Too many large Muslin countries are giving in to their more extreme censorship sects that are just as extreme as some Christians sects in the US that hope to do exactly the same thing (to libraries, wikipedia, anything else that they can).

    • So far, religious freedom has held pretty firm in the US. The whole country is getting more secular. Religious conservatives have been trying for centuries to get laws and court decisions to force religion. For the most part, they've been bluntly told to shove it.

      On the other side, the courts have been upholding the right of an individual to hate gays, abortion, and birth control, liberals, the environment, and to just generally be a human piece of s*(t. As much as it annoys me, this falls under the sam
      • I don’t know about that. https://www.politico.com/news/... [politico.com]

        Imagine if this guy unrolled a prayer mat and faced Mecca on the 50 yard line. He’d be hanging from a tree. But since it’s the “right” deity it’s perfectly fine.

      • I think some of this leads to disillusionment with democracy. As in, they did things the proper democratic way and it turns out that they're in the minority and they clearly made a mistake in not creating a theocracy in the first place so that they could ban independent thinkers (Methodists and Quakers and Catholics, oh my!). Pakistan clearly has dodged this bullet by not experimenting with dangerous ideas like freedom of speech and civil rights.

    • The advantage of Christian sects is that there are so many of them. Sola scriptura set us free, the Sunnah unites Sunni Islam in a way protestant Christianity can never be (as does Talmud for jews). There is still a little room to manoeuvre within its limits, but far less.

      • By insisting everyone study the Koran in the original Arabic, Islam avoid the many translation errors the Christian Bible has been subject to.
  • That's why it looked to bad recently. And I am not even in Pakistan.

  • Don't pay it another minute of thought. Write them off and move on.

  • by VeryFluffyBunny ( 5037285 ) on Wednesday February 01, 2023 @01:15PM (#63257371)
    Now would be a good time to encourage govts. to reconsider blasphemy laws. Do they actually do anyone any good? What harm do they do?

    I reckon everyone should the right to be offended. Everyone should have the right to express their thoughts, beliefs, criticisms, humour, creativity, etc.. Causing offence & being offended have been a part of life since humans started cooperating & communicating with each other. Small, objectionable, easily offended, noisy minorities can make life very unpleasant for the majority. They're the reason we can't have a lot of nice things. But there's also things like racism, sexism, xenophobia, incitement, & hate speech in general. With blasphemy laws it's possible to protect hate speech, so how do we deal with that?

    If we don't learn to deal with it constructively & fairly, it'll severely degrade everyone's quality of life. So how do we deal with this?
  • Are they going to take down my "Buddha, you fat slob!" page too?
  • by genixia ( 220387 ) on Wednesday February 01, 2023 @01:44PM (#63257501)

    gave shelter to Osama Bin Laden for years?

    Fuck 'em. Cut them off from anything useful in the rest of World and let their society prosper exactly as they wish. There's only so many trillions of dollars that western nations can waste encouraging them to be safe modern liberal democracies - change has to come from within.

  • Your omnipotent, all powerful God needs you to punish people that piss him off, he's too weak to do it himself? Isn't that the basis for all sacrilege laws?

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