Wikipedia Unblocked in Pakistan After Prime Minister's Intervention

Pakistan has unblocked Wikipedia in the South Asian market, three days after the online encyclopedia was censored in the nation over noncompliance with removing what the local regulator deemed as "sacrilegious" content. From a report: Shehbaz Sharif, the Prime Minister of Pakistan, directed the unblocking order, calling the censorship on Wikipedia "not a suitable measure to restrict access to some objectionable contents / sacrilegious matter on it." "The unintended consequences of this blanket ban, therefore, outweigh its benefits," Sharif added.

I bet the real reason it's unblocked

[rsilvergun]

is the PM's kid needed it to get his homework done.

Also, theocracy is no joke.

Re:

[backslashdot]

Give credit where it's due. Cynicism doesn't help, it will only get the extremists power.

Nice to see some good news

[XXongo]

Nice to see some good news out of Pakistan.

Yes, unintended consequences indeed.

I am sure this was planned from the beginning.

[Sique]

Somehow this reminds me of the movie Anna and the King. The rule there is that the judge convicts to the death penalty, and the king grants clemency. In this case, the regulator calls for censorship, and the president grants a lift of the ban.

Birds of a feather

[ArchieBunker]

https://www.reuters.com/world/... [reuters.com]

Seventeen U.S. Republican state attorneys general wrote a letter to the chief executive of Alphabet's Google (GOOGL.O) urging the company to show "crisis pregnancy centers," which oppose the procedure, in search results for people looking for abortion services.

Re:

[NotEmmanuelGoldstein]

... protecting the rights of our constituents, of upholding viewpoint diversity, free expression, and the freedom of religion for all Americans ...

And any search for "churches" must also detail synagogues and mosques. And any search for "2nd amendment" or "NRA" must also detail the anti-gun-violence laws of Australia, UK and the state of Massachusetts. Once again, this is the far-right whinging "nobody listens to me, it's not fair, you have to make them listen".

Google charges for changing search results, they're not about to work for free. The US government can't force them either, every mega-company would sue the government.

Re:Birds of a feather

[Aristos Mazer]

> every mega-company would sue the government.
 
And this is why we need a theocracy. Wait, sorry, I've been reading propaganda again.

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[gweihir]

How repulsive. There is evil in the world and it is these people.

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[opakapaka]

Google regularly promotes specific content in SERP space that serve its virtue signaling purposes. Try searching for black history month.

Bad faith

[manu0601]

Now we can complain about the lack of justice independence in Pakistan.

Re:

[gweihir]

If you can put "justice" and "blasphemie" in the same context, you have already lost.

Re:

[test321]

While there was no justice at all involved (it was a the government telecommunication agency), it is interesting to notice that it is not independent in Pakistan. In USA the FCC, which is in charge of censorship when it exists (like censorship of internet pornography in 1996 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org] ) is independent. France has also an independent communication regulation authority (Arcom), certainly more developed countries follow this rule as well. It is worth of debate whether this should be the

Re:

[manu0601]

FCC and Arcom members are chosen for a few years by executive and legislative powers. That is far from the independence of a judge.

So at least the PM does not want a dark age?

[gweihir]

Well, that is something. When the religious fuckups get limited in their power-fantasies by the head of state, that is actually pretty good.

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[Miles_O'Toole]

I hope the day comes when this will occur in the United States.

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[nightflameauto]

Money is the only power that talks in the United States. And there are very, very few entities that have the money to fight Christianity. Even fewer who have the money to fight them and don't see them as useful pawns in their own end-game.

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[quenda]

limited in their power-fantasies by the head of state,

small nitpick: The PM is not head of state. That role is held by a dentist: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

Re:

[Chris Mattern]

He is, however, the head of the government. In parliamentary systems, the two are usually not the same, with the head of the government being the one with the real power.

Pakistan needs to figure out who it wants to be.

[Eunomion]

It's better to be conflicted like this than to be solidly stupid, but it's not a plan. Religion is not an adequate national basis.

What's this?

[Bu11etmagnet]

A sudden outbreak of common sense? From a politician, no less? I must be dreaming.

A fair proposal

[gnasher719]

If a country believes that some article in wikipedia is sacrilegious, make it possible for them to add an official statement of this at the start of the article. So if you are from Pakistan, and your government claims it is sacrilegious, you are free not to read it. If I, in the UK, read that Pakistan thinks an article is sacrilegious, then that is information that I find interesting.

I'd extend that to other situations, where a person or company affected by an article could be allowed to add a statement

Re:

[laughing_badger]

Well, it's a statement of fact and it is on-topic, so it would be a valid edit to make. Perhaps in the style:

The information contained in the this article is considered blasphemous [1] in the country of Pakistan therefore people reading from that country should consider if they wish to continue.

[1] Edict from government.

I didn't think this ban would last

[alkurta]

It all comes down to who needs who more? Does Wikipedia need the Pakistani market more than Pakistan needs Wikipedia access? It was easy to guess this outcome.