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Pakistani gov degrades Wikipedia connections due to blasphemy

171 points by flipbrad 4y ago

ryzvonusef 4y ago
Fully banned now: https://wikimediafoundation.org/news/2023/02/03/wikimedia-foundation-urges-pakistan-telecommunications-authority-to-restore-access-to-wikipedia-in-pakistan/ https://wikimediafoundation.org/news/2023/02/03/wikimedia-fo... in unrelated news, Deutsche Welle also banned
flipbrad 4y ago
"Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) has degraded Wikipedia services in the country on account of not blocking / removing sacrilegious contents. Wikipedia was approached for blocking / removal of the said contents by issuing a notice under applicable law and court order(s). An opportunity of hearing was also provided, however, the platform neither complied by removing the blasphemous content nor appeared before the Authority. Given the intentional failure on part of the platform to comply with the directions of PTA, the services of Wikipedia have been degraded for 48 hours with the direction to block / remove the reported contents. In case of non-compliance by Wikipedia the platform will be blocked within Pakistan. The restoration of the services of Wikipedia will be reconsidered subject to blocking / removal of the reported unlawful contents. PTA is committed to ensuring a safe online experience for all Pakistani citizens according to local laws."
- beardyw 4y ago
  I am trying to think why Wikipedia would care about this. They offer a free service - if you don't want it that's just disappointing.
  - brmgb 4y ago
    Then everyone in Pakistan gets deprived of a valuable source of knowledge on virtue of their government being obscurantist.
    - dncornholio 4y ago
      The people who actually care are the Pakistani people. Let them fight it. Wikipedia can and should just keep doing what its doing.
  - kemayo 4y ago
    An ideological commitment to free knowledge, mostly. It's upsetting to be cut off from people who could use it.
    - hulitu 4y ago
      It would be nice if it would be free knowledge. But, like the rest of the internet, wikipedia became a victim of people with an agenda (to not say 3 letter agencies).
  - jl6 4y ago
    They might care that Pakistani Wikipedia editors and readers alike could find themselves targeted by the Pakistani authorities.
    - kibwen 4y ago
      By that argument, HN should remove any comment that mentions Tianenmen Square, so that readers in China do not find themselves targeted by the CCP.
      - jl6 4y ago
        I am certainly not arguing for censorship of Wikipedia, I’m just responding to the comment asking why Wikipedia would care about this situation.
    - kspacewalk2 4y ago
      Okay, they might care. But they won't care in a way that causes them to censor anything, so it's a moot point. Pakistan is just not going to affect the editorial policy of Wikipedia. They know this, so they made a decision to block the site. Oh well, sucks for Pakistanis, and since it's a democracy, all I can say is - elect better governments.
  - skitter 4y ago
    Because people who don't want to access Wikipedia already can decide to not access it, but the ones who want to can't. Pakistan is not a singular person.
  - throwaway09223 4y ago
    They don't care. They know people can get around the blocks. Wikipedia is more valuable with accurate content, even if some countries make it harder to access.
    - 131012 4y ago
      May I suggest they really do care about the situation and this is why they refuse to block anything.
    - trompetenaccoun 4y ago
      I don't know regarding Pakistan, but it isn't true that they generally don't care: https://wikimediafoundation.org/news/2022/06/13/wikimedia-foundation-appeals-russian-court-decision-on-removal-of-wikipedia-information-related-to-the-russian-invasion-of-ukraine https://wikimediafoundation.org/news/2022/06/13/wikimedia-fo...
  - unixlikeposting 4y ago
    They also offer a paid service, with Google notably a customer.
  - psyfi 4y ago
    Because the law of a country (a very populated country) prohibits it. In the same sense they supposedly would remove whatever violates hate speech laws or copyright laws in some other countries that the ones they operate in.
    - dctoedt 4y ago
      > Because the law of a country (a very populated country) prohibits it s/law/rulers/g
      - hulitu 4y ago
        > s/law/rulers/g You don't need to replace them. They are equivalent.
        AnimalMuppet 4y ago
        There is a major difference between "rule of law" and "rule of rulers". Yes, rulers make laws. No, that's not the same as the rule of law.
- robofanatic 4y ago
  > PTA is committed to ensuring a safe online experience for all Pakistani citizens according to local laws. How would Pakistani citizens be unsafe if that content remains? will there be total chaos? riots? more suicide bombings?
  - ParrotRaj 4y ago
    Citizens would read blashpemous material, commit blashpemy and then will be lynched by the crowd Wish it was a joke but sadly lynching due to alleged blashpemy is a huge issue in pakistan. Recently a Sri Lankan citizen was burned alive with a few hundred witnesses who just watched.
tarotuser 4y ago
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- gataca 4y ago
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  - tarotuser 4y ago
    [flagged]
LinuxBender 4y ago
Archive Version [1] [1] - https://archive.ph/cKPf8 https://archive.ph/cKPf8
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
robertlagrant 4y ago
I'm starting to view more and more things as nationalism vs globalism. E.g. multinational corporations vs national tax laws E.g. global internet services vs national privacy laws E.g. global internet services vs national decency laws (the posted issue) I'm starting to realise this mismatch is where a lot of friction is and will continue to be.
- bannedbybros 4y ago
  [dead]
- toomuchtodo 4y ago
  The demand and struggle for power is what maintains tension in perpetuity. There is no end, just shifts.
- syntheticnature 4y ago
  Makes me think, though it's not 1:1, of a book I read in college called _Jihad vs. McWorld_ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jihad_vs._McWorld https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jihad_vs._McWorld
- jacooper 4y ago
  Its not nationalism, but fairness. If nationally you can't just work people all week, then an american company with unlimited VC money, selling its user data to everybody and working its workers to death will absolutely crush any local or neighboring competitor. There must be limits, because as we have seen, globalism as its currently is basically american everything.
  - robertlagrant 4y ago
    > There must be limits There are limits. There is no unlimited VC money, and America's a crazy place to give an example of as having no workers' rights.
    - jacooper 4y ago
LinuxBender 4y ago
I would love wag the finger but first I would have to clean up my own country, the United States of America. When the US government stops pressuring social media platforms to censor speech and they stop happily complying then perhaps I might have room to criticize other nations. [Edit] And how should this be addressed in the US? Simple. Only censor things that are explicitly and clearly illegal under federal law and the laws of the state the company is headquartered in. If another state has an issue with that, then they must create their own competing platform. Machine learning, what people today are mistakenly calling "AI" must tag anything that is not explicitly illegal with unobtrusive labels such as "hate speech" or "propaganda" or "misinformation" and so on.... Each label must link to the Machine Learning "Showing Its Work" to describe in detail exactly how it reached that conclusion and the members of the platform must have a way to contest and override the labels. The posts must show how many people disagree with said labels. No hidden algorithms, no hidden data-sets. The Machine Learning must show its work and show its references. Members must have the ability to hide any content that has labels they do not wish to see just like the capabilities in StackExchange.
- bryan0 4y ago
  There’s plenty of room to criticize both
  - serverholic 4y ago
    What I’ve realized is that people in general are largely incapable of nuance. - Things are either bad or good. - Only one side can be right which means the other side is automagically wrong. - Multiple things can’t be true at the same time. - etc.
    - rootusrootus 4y ago
      If there is one thing that can reliably eliminate nuance from any discussion, it is politics. Alleged censorship in social media is a hot topic in the last few years amongst partisans.
    - acdha 4y ago
psiops 4y ago
No links to the sacrilicious content. Shame.
auctoritas 4y ago
Similar things are happening in the West given US and Euro govts leaning on Social Media companies to censor dissenting/blasphemous views. Just think - what are you not allowed to say? What will get you banned or blacklisted?
- sidlls 4y ago
  "banned or blacklisted" vs "executed by the state". Definitely equivalent. The West, in general, within its own territory, is better on just about every civil rights issue than places like Pakistan and China. That doesn't mean it's good: places like Pakistan and China set a pretty low bar.
  - 34611 4y ago
    [flagged]
  - hulitu 4y ago
    > The West, in general, within its own territory, is better on just about every civil rights issue than places like Pakistan and China. " Another Bleedin Monty Python Website banner image image HomeTV Series Holy Grail Meaning of LifeLife of BrianSilly Links Life of Brian Script Scene 12: Brian Earns Jailor's Pet Title The sketch: eerie music VOICE: Huo! whip VOICE: Hoo hoo hoo! Oh! clank whump BRIAN: Eh. clank JAILER: Eh, heh heh ha. ptoo BRIAN: Aah! Eh. JAILER: Eh, heh heh. cough cough cough cough cough BEN: You lucky bastard. BRIAN: Who's that? BEN: You lucky, lucky bastard. BRIAN: What? BEN: Proper little jailer's pet, aren't we? BRIAN: What do you mean? BEN: You must have slipped him a few shekels, eh? BRIAN: Slipped him a few shekels? You saw him spit in my face! BEN: Ohh! What wouldn't I give to be spat at in the face! I sometimes hang awake at night dreaming of being spat at in the face. BRIAN: Well, it's not exactly friendly, is it? They had me in manacles! BEN: Manacles! Ooh oooh oh oh. My idea of heaven is to be allowed to be put in manacles... just for a few hours. They must think the sun shines out o' your arse, sonny. BRIAN: Oh, lay off me. I've had a hard time! BEN: You've had a hard time?! I've been here five years! They only hung me the right way up yesterday! So, don't you come 'rou-- BRIAN: All right. All right. BEN: They must think you're Lord God Almighty. BRIAN: What will they do to me? BEN: Oh, you'll probably get away with crucifixion. BRIAN: Crucifixion?! BEN: Yeah, first offence. BRIAN: Get away with crucifixion?! It's-- BEN: Best thing the Romans ever did for us. BRIAN: What?! BEN: Oh, yeah. If we didn't have crucifixion, this country would be in a right bloody mess. BRIAN: Guards! BEN: Nail him up, I say! BRIAN: Guards! BEN: Nail some sense into him! JAILER: cough cough What do you want? BRIAN: I want you to move me to another cell. JAILER: Ha! ptoo BRIAN: Aah! BEN: Oh, look at that! Bloody favoritism! JAILER: Shut up, you! BEN: Sorry! JAILER: Huhh. cough cough BEN: Now, take my case. They hung me up here five years ago. Every night, they take me down for twenty minutes, then they hang me up again, which I regard as very fair, in view of what I done, and, if nothing else, it's taught me to respect the Romans, and it's taught me... that you'll never get anywhere in this life, unless you're prepared to do a fair day's work for a fair day's pay! BRIAN: Oh, shut up! clank JAILER: Ehhh. CENTURION: Pilate wants to see you! BRIAN: Me? CENTURION: Come on! BRIAN: Pilate? What does he want to see me for? CENTURION: I think he wants to know which way up you want to be crucified. BEN: Oh, ha ha ha haa! Ha haa! Nice one, Centurion. Like it. Like it. CENTURION: Shut up! BEN: Right. Right. Terrific race, the Romans. Terrific."
capableweb 4y ago
> on account of not blocking / removing sacrilegious contents > Wikipedia was approached for blocking / removal of the said contents > platform neither complied by removing the blasphemous content nor appeared before the Authority. Anyone know what sacrilegious/blasphemous content they are referring to?
- cactusplant7374 4y ago
  Are there artistic depictions of Muhammed on Wikipedia?
  - ceejayoz 4y ago
    Yes, and that's been the cause for several previous blocks. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_of_Wikipedia#Pakistan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_of_Wikipedia#Pakist...
  - capableweb 4y ago
    Yes, there is in fact an entire category dedicated to "Cultural depictions of Muhammad": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Cultural_depictions_of_Muhammad https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Cultural_depictions_o... Includes a link to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_Best_Friends https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_Best_Friends (South Park episode) which contains an image of Muhammad.
  - jeroenhd 4y ago
    There's an entire article about it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depictions_of_Muhammad https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depictions_of_Muhammad
  - nimbius 4y ago
    while it may be tempting to condense the concern to the most virulent objections of an extreme, it bears remembrance that Pakistan is the only country to have been created in the name of Islam. the Holy Quran and Sunnah are effectively the books by which this nation is governed, and as such any charge of blasphemy is taken with a seriousness bordering on the academic. this blasphemy charge could stem from any of the big 8, but the specific charges would be laid out in an almost arduous detail to the The Federal Shariat Court to make the case. only the supreme court of Pakistan can overrule the FSC. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blasphemy_in_Pakistan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blasphemy_in_Pakistan daily Pakistan reports this is due to 'sacrilege,' a far less dire charge: https://en.dailypakistan.com.pk/01-Feb-2023/pakistan-degrades-wikipedia-services-for-48-hours-over-sacrilegious-content https://en.dailypakistan.com.pk/01-Feb-2023/pakistan-degrade... the PTA (telecom authority) is committed to ensuring a safe online experience for all Pakistani citizens according to local laws, similar to content laws in the US and UK.
ubermonkey 4y ago
Thank you, God, for your healing gift of religion.
boomboomsubban 4y ago
... Why not edit out the "offensive" material? edit I meant why didn't the Pakistani government just edit Wikipedia like any other person. I realized my post could be taken as saying "why didn't Wikipedia just do what they want" which was not what I meant.
- ceejayoz 4y ago
  It will be (rightly) rapidly restored.
  - boomboomsubban 4y ago
    Maybe? I don't know how many editors Urdu Wikipedia has nor how many have views similar to the government, but I wonder if they even tried the official Wikipedia method.
- rdevsrex 4y ago
  What's offensive to someone is just scholarship to another person.
- bunbun69 4y ago
  Just comply bro
- phone8675309 4y ago
  Because Pakistan shouldn't and doesn't get veto power because some backwards religious fundamentalists don't like what's on the Internet
- duxup 4y ago
  Why edit it?
- driverdan 4y ago
  Because Wikipedia doesn't comply with censorship and rightfully so.
qwerty456127 4y ago
I can hardly imagine an idea more ridiculous than "blasphemy". The G-d is not a psychologically immature human being easy to offend. Nothing a human might possibly say can change the state of G-d from perfect harmony to anything else.
- mc32 4y ago
  I don't think they are afraid of offending their god. I think they fear their human worshippers devolving into worshipping the person rather than following their religion. In other words they want to avoid the historical person superseding their god.
  - timeon 4y ago
    This also implies some insecurity in their god.
- DharmaPolice 4y ago
  That doesn't match the Abrahamic conception of God though which is the point here. In fact, that God is almost the opposite of what you've described.
  - qwerty456127 4y ago
    If G-d is eternal, omnipresent, and omnipotent. How can he logically be different from what I described? He has seen everything imaginable and unimaginable countless times, will see everthing, knows everything to happen in advance, in sub-atomic details. Also knows your whole life which made your character this way so you behave exactly like you do, also all the neurotransmitter fluctuations taking place in you and what causes them inevitably, understands you better than yourself or any psychologist ever could. Imagine a terribly disabled person, crippled physically and mentally, unable to carry a kilogram for a second or multiply 2x3, traumatised to the point of insanity, striuggling from dementia. Also imagine you are a world-famous olympic athlette with four doctorate degrees in diverse areas. What if the cripple would say an insult about you, would you feel anything but compassion? This is a rough approximation of the difference between any person and the G-d.
cactusplant7374 4y ago
Twitter appears to have complied with removing the BBC documentary tweets for users in India. So some tweets are not available in India. It does look like Wikipedia is ahead of Twitter in the free speech absolutist game if it prefers being blocked to compliance.
- mardifoufs 4y ago
  I think he always specified that it was within the limits of local laws. Were the links removed for every country, or just in india?
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
- recuter 4y ago
  You're comparing a group chat to an encyclopedia...
  - factsarelolz 4y ago
    > encyclopedia Encyclopedias are not warped to fit a minority groups opinion like Wikipedia is. Wikipedia is a website, not a trusted source. Not sure when Wikipedia became something more than a crowdsourced opinion site.
    - recuter 4y ago
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reliability_of_Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reliability_of_Wikipedia
  - nashashmi 4y ago
    Wikipedia has become closer to group chat. And twitter closer to valuable dissemination of first person content.
    - 4y ago
mmaunder 4y ago
Government mandated belief in a deity, and censoring contradictory content has nothing to do with belief or a god, but is designed to preserve a power structure.
pen2l 4y ago
Previously there was a comment that was quite elucidative made by an HN user here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34304824 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34304824 In recent years I've come around to viewing the American ideal of absolute "free speech" as not being all that nuanced, particularly because we know know the speed at which viral false and illegitimate claims travel and the slower speed at which reasoned responses to those speech travel. I think we can all agree that artistic depictions of Mohammad, even if they fall squarely under free speech, are something that are of poor taste because they trigger the sensibilities of a large chunk of people that abide to certain customs and norms. The hope here is that these folks come around to their viewpoints and say "sigh, I don't like what you're doing, but I'm just going to turn away". The debate is front and center, let's see how it evolves.
- nailer 4y ago
  Absolutely disagree. The trend of censoring people that depict Mohammed is relatively recent - nobody cared about the Superfriends episode back around 2000 - and giving in to it gives grounds to the same people that attack ex-Muslims for leaving Islam.
- ghaff 4y ago
  We can probably all agree that a great many things on the web are considered in poor taste by someone somewhere in the world. That doesn't mean that web content should be limited to things that no one anywhere considers in poor taste.
- rootusrootus 4y ago
  > I think we can all agree You'd be wrong. Many of us think that judging content by whether it offends someone is a terrible idea. Viewers should self-censor if they find something objectionable rather than subject everyone else to their personal opinions.
  - pen2l 4y ago
    This is the kind of take that only exists on HN and is obviously wrong flat on its face if thought through for even a little bit. Someone can and does have the right to tell dead baby jokes to a father who has just lost a child but that doesn't mean it's okay that someone should, and indeed in a civilized and social society there are guardrails to prevent that sort of thing: that someone would get rebuked and if they continue being a jerk, that someone would in some manner be punished or rejected from that local community. We judge the content of what others find offensive all the time, and we even agree that it is subjective, different people of different ages, backgrounds, experiences have different sensibilities, and as social beings we understand and respect this. The internet of course throws a wrench in all of this because it's hard to enforce moderation on a local basis as we do in the real world. But that does not mean that the way we have been living forever goes out the window. I'm not saying we should do away with free speech, rather just that we have to work through things carefully and slowly. My hope is that after a little bit of debate, a liberal attitude prevails in Pakistan. But to respond with how folks are responding in this thread, of just putting gasoline on the fire, that's not really how progress is made, it is how we further elevate and agitate an already volatile happening -- we should probably not do that.
dec0dedab0de 4y ago
Even if the slippery slope is a logical fallacy, it's important to remember where the staircase of censorship leads.
- throwayyy479087 4y ago
  What about the last decade would lead you to believe the slippery slope is a fallacy? It's less a slope than a cliff.
  - BowBun 4y ago
    People love to reference the logical fallacy[1] as though there have been no instances where momentum builds from a series of decisions and cascades in a massive shift. But then again, thinkers like these are happy to comfortably think about the past while many suffer, instead of applying realism towards the future. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slippery_slope https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slippery_slope
    - mynameisvlad 4y ago
      People love to cite the fallacy because it’s one that’s used a lot. Sure, momentum builds. Sometimes. But the fallacy is proclaiming with 100% certainty both that the momentum will build, and the specific way it’s going to roll. We don’t know the future. We can’t claim with certainty that something will happen as a result of another action. Claiming anything otherwise is falling right into the fallacy.
      - LarryMullins 4y ago
        Drawing a downward slope is a fallacy when you have a single datapoint and you're just asserting that the datapoint exists as part of a trend. If you have more than a single datapoint, then claiming to see a trend is no longer fallacious. In the real world, there is rarely a single datapoint. In the case of religions demanding censorship, there is A LOT of data.
yreg 4y ago
Wikipedia doesn't comply with government censorship and interestingly it is apparently so important that the national governments very often cave in. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_of_Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_of_Wikipedia Some countries used to block specific articles, but that's not possible anymore thanks to HTTPS. Local editors in such places are at risk of prosecution though.
hallqv 4y ago
[flagged]
- MonkeyMalarky 4y ago
  Each offshoot Abrahamic cult is worse than the last.
  - LarryMullins 4y ago
    At least the second toned down on the ethnic superiority complex of the first. As did the third for that matter. Why are people so eager to give the first of those religions a pass?
  - danny_codes 4y ago
    Bahai seem relatively chill.
  - 34611 4y ago
    [flagged]
  - dang 4y ago
    Religious flamewar is not welcome here and we ban accounts that post like this, so please don't post like this. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- baybal2 4y ago
  Some context here. There were a series of large scale terrorist attacks in Pakistan recently, with recent killing 101 people. This has caused an extreme level of criticism of the government, and the government is trying desperately to find a way to do a diversion. Ban on Wikipedia is a highly visible attempt to distract Pakistani literati class from security issues. Nothing to do with religion
- eldaisfish 4y ago
  It is power and the drive to preserve power that is behind much of this. Religion is a convenient scapegoat in the case of islam because much of the islamic world is some combination of poor and lacking freedom. Islam is also in the relatively unique situation of mixing religion with politics that leads to the power struggle in the first place.
meindnoch 4y ago
Oh no! Anyway...
kunley 4y ago
According to the believers views, Allah intercepts this traffic by himself :D
type0 4y ago
Other big most visited web-pages need to degrade their connection in to Pakistan in solidarity with Wikipedia, if they care even one bit about free and open Web, otherwise it will never stop and more and more countries will use these methods to get their demands through.
robofanatic 4y ago
> PTA is committed to ensuring a safe online experience for all Pakistani citizens according to local laws. seriously what could go wrong in that country if the content is not blocked?
ac2023 4y ago
I remember being unable to access Wikipedia when I was in Turkey
temp-amp 4y ago
I don't know why anyone is surprised. Internet is censored in one form or other by almost all countries. And if censorship is hurting business, companies comply to the demands. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Internet_censorship_by_country https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Internet_censorship_b... As for Wikipedia I know it's not a business, but the above logic of countries controlling access of content applies here. It's not the first time or first country censoring Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_of_Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_of_Wikipedia I think we need to understand the main cause behind all this. One thing we need to understand more which is not the cause but symptom the right & left wing populism across world. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right-wing_populism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right-wing_populism
eruci 4y ago
This ongoing stupidity reminds me of this poem: What if What if an AI writes a blasphemy? and the faithful already are asking for its beheading? I also thought of something else to write, but I'd rather not for I also have a head one can chop. https://random-poem.com/What https://random-poem.com/What
rocknor 4y ago
The creation of Pakistan is one of the biggest mistakes in modern history. The only country created on the basis of religion, thanks to the nonsensical Two Nation Theory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two-nation_theory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two-nation_theory. It was created so Muslims can be safe in their own country, but ironically Muslims in India enjoy a way better life and future prospects. As an Indian I wish the country gets rid of its weird Muslim superiority complex and adopts secular values so peace between our nations becomes a real possiblity.
- hulitu 4y ago
  > The creation of Pakistan is one of the biggest mistakes in modern history. The UK would like to politely dissagree.
amriksohata 4y ago
Hindus are constantly persecuted in Pakistan under so called blasphemy laws

171 points by flipbrad 4y ago

Fully banned now: https://wikimediafoundation.org/news/2023/02/03/wikimedia-foundation-urges-pakistan-telecommunications-authority-to-restore-access-to-wikipedia-in-pakistan/ https://wikimediafoundation.org/news/2023/02/03/wikimedia-fo... in unrelated news, Deutsche Welle also banned

flipbrad 4y ago

"Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) has degraded Wikipedia services in the country on account of not blocking / removing sacrilegious contents. Wikipedia was approached for blocking / removal of the said contents by issuing a notice under applicable law and court order(s). An opportunity of hearing was also provided, however, the platform neither complied by removing the blasphemous content nor appeared before the Authority. Given the intentional failure on part of the platform to comply with the directions of PTA, the services of Wikipedia have been degraded for 48 hours with the direction to block / remove the reported contents. In case of non-compliance by Wikipedia the platform will be blocked within Pakistan. The restoration of the services of Wikipedia will be reconsidered subject to blocking / removal of the reported unlawful contents. PTA is committed to ensuring a safe online experience for all Pakistani citizens according to local laws."

beardyw 4y ago
I am trying to think why Wikipedia would care about this. They offer a free service - if you don't want it that's just disappointing.
- brmgb 4y ago
  Then everyone in Pakistan gets deprived of a valuable source of knowledge on virtue of their government being obscurantist.
  - dncornholio 4y ago
    The people who actually care are the Pakistani people. Let them fight it. Wikipedia can and should just keep doing what its doing.
- kemayo 4y ago
  An ideological commitment to free knowledge, mostly. It's upsetting to be cut off from people who could use it.
  - hulitu 4y ago
    It would be nice if it would be free knowledge. But, like the rest of the internet, wikipedia became a victim of people with an agenda (to not say 3 letter agencies).
- jl6 4y ago
  They might care that Pakistani Wikipedia editors and readers alike could find themselves targeted by the Pakistani authorities.
  - kibwen 4y ago
    By that argument, HN should remove any comment that mentions Tianenmen Square, so that readers in China do not find themselves targeted by the CCP.
    - jl6 4y ago
      I am certainly not arguing for censorship of Wikipedia, I’m just responding to the comment asking why Wikipedia would care about this situation.
  - kspacewalk2 4y ago
    Okay, they might care. But they won't care in a way that causes them to censor anything, so it's a moot point. Pakistan is just not going to affect the editorial policy of Wikipedia. They know this, so they made a decision to block the site. Oh well, sucks for Pakistanis, and since it's a democracy, all I can say is - elect better governments.
- skitter 4y ago
  Because people who don't want to access Wikipedia already can decide to not access it, but the ones who want to can't. Pakistan is not a singular person.
- throwaway09223 4y ago
  They don't care. They know people can get around the blocks. Wikipedia is more valuable with accurate content, even if some countries make it harder to access.
  - 131012 4y ago
    May I suggest they really do care about the situation and this is why they refuse to block anything.
  - trompetenaccoun 4y ago
    I don't know regarding Pakistan, but it isn't true that they generally don't care: https://wikimediafoundation.org/news/2022/06/13/wikimedia-foundation-appeals-russian-court-decision-on-removal-of-wikipedia-information-related-to-the-russian-invasion-of-ukraine https://wikimediafoundation.org/news/2022/06/13/wikimedia-fo...
- unixlikeposting 4y ago
  They also offer a paid service, with Google notably a customer.
- psyfi 4y ago
  Because the law of a country (a very populated country) prohibits it. In the same sense they supposedly would remove whatever violates hate speech laws or copyright laws in some other countries that the ones they operate in.
  - dctoedt 4y ago
    > Because the law of a country (a very populated country) prohibits it s/law/rulers/g
    - hulitu 4y ago
      > s/law/rulers/g You don't need to replace them. They are equivalent.
      - AnimalMuppet 4y ago
        There is a major difference between "rule of law" and "rule of rulers". Yes, rulers make laws. No, that's not the same as the rule of law.
robofanatic 4y ago
> PTA is committed to ensuring a safe online experience for all Pakistani citizens according to local laws. How would Pakistani citizens be unsafe if that content remains? will there be total chaos? riots? more suicide bombings?
- ParrotRaj 4y ago
  Citizens would read blashpemous material, commit blashpemy and then will be lynched by the crowd Wish it was a joke but sadly lynching due to alleged blashpemy is a huge issue in pakistan. Recently a Sri Lankan citizen was burned alive with a few hundred witnesses who just watched.

tarotuser 4y ago

[flagged]

gataca 4y ago
[flagged]
- tarotuser 4y ago
  [flagged]

LinuxBender 4y ago

Archive Version [1] [1] - https://archive.ph/cKPf8 https://archive.ph/cKPf8

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

robertlagrant 4y ago

I'm starting to view more and more things as nationalism vs globalism. E.g. multinational corporations vs national tax laws E.g. global internet services vs national privacy laws E.g. global internet services vs national decency laws (the posted issue) I'm starting to realise this mismatch is where a lot of friction is and will continue to be.

bannedbybros 4y ago
[dead]
toomuchtodo 4y ago
The demand and struggle for power is what maintains tension in perpetuity. There is no end, just shifts.
syntheticnature 4y ago
Makes me think, though it's not 1:1, of a book I read in college called _Jihad vs. McWorld_ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jihad_vs._McWorld https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jihad_vs._McWorld
jacooper 4y ago
Its not nationalism, but fairness. If nationally you can't just work people all week, then an american company with unlimited VC money, selling its user data to everybody and working its workers to death will absolutely crush any local or neighboring competitor. There must be limits, because as we have seen, globalism as its currently is basically american everything.
- robertlagrant 4y ago
  > There must be limits There are limits. There is no unlimited VC money, and America's a crazy place to give an example of as having no workers' rights.
  - jacooper 4y ago

LinuxBender 4y ago

I would love wag the finger but first I would have to clean up my own country, the United States of America. When the US government stops pressuring social media platforms to censor speech and they stop happily complying then perhaps I might have room to criticize other nations. [Edit] And how should this be addressed in the US? Simple. Only censor things that are explicitly and clearly illegal under federal law and the laws of the state the company is headquartered in. If another state has an issue with that, then they must create their own competing platform. Machine learning, what people today are mistakenly calling "AI" must tag anything that is not explicitly illegal with unobtrusive labels such as "hate speech" or "propaganda" or "misinformation" and so on.... Each label must link to the Machine Learning "Showing Its Work" to describe in detail exactly how it reached that conclusion and the members of the platform must have a way to contest and override the labels. The posts must show how many people disagree with said labels. No hidden algorithms, no hidden data-sets. The Machine Learning must show its work and show its references. Members must have the ability to hide any content that has labels they do not wish to see just like the capabilities in StackExchange.

bryan0 4y ago
There’s plenty of room to criticize both
- serverholic 4y ago
  What I’ve realized is that people in general are largely incapable of nuance. - Things are either bad or good. - Only one side can be right which means the other side is automagically wrong. - Multiple things can’t be true at the same time. - etc.
  - rootusrootus 4y ago
    If there is one thing that can reliably eliminate nuance from any discussion, it is politics. Alleged censorship in social media is a hot topic in the last few years amongst partisans.
  - acdha 4y ago

psiops 4y ago

No links to the sacrilicious content. Shame.

auctoritas 4y ago

Similar things are happening in the West given US and Euro govts leaning on Social Media companies to censor dissenting/blasphemous views. Just think - what are you not allowed to say? What will get you banned or blacklisted?

sidlls 4y ago
"banned or blacklisted" vs "executed by the state". Definitely equivalent. The West, in general, within its own territory, is better on just about every civil rights issue than places like Pakistan and China. That doesn't mean it's good: places like Pakistan and China set a pretty low bar.
- 34611 4y ago
  [flagged]
- hulitu 4y ago
  > The West, in general, within its own territory, is better on just about every civil rights issue than places like Pakistan and China. " Another Bleedin Monty Python Website banner image image HomeTV Series Holy Grail Meaning of LifeLife of BrianSilly Links Life of Brian Script Scene 12: Brian Earns Jailor's Pet Title The sketch: eerie music VOICE: Huo! whip VOICE: Hoo hoo hoo! Oh! clank whump BRIAN: Eh. clank JAILER: Eh, heh heh ha. ptoo BRIAN: Aah! Eh. JAILER: Eh, heh heh. cough cough cough cough cough BEN: You lucky bastard. BRIAN: Who's that? BEN: You lucky, lucky bastard. BRIAN: What? BEN: Proper little jailer's pet, aren't we? BRIAN: What do you mean? BEN: You must have slipped him a few shekels, eh? BRIAN: Slipped him a few shekels? You saw him spit in my face! BEN: Ohh! What wouldn't I give to be spat at in the face! I sometimes hang awake at night dreaming of being spat at in the face. BRIAN: Well, it's not exactly friendly, is it? They had me in manacles! BEN: Manacles! Ooh oooh oh oh. My idea of heaven is to be allowed to be put in manacles... just for a few hours. They must think the sun shines out o' your arse, sonny. BRIAN: Oh, lay off me. I've had a hard time! BEN: You've had a hard time?! I've been here five years! They only hung me the right way up yesterday! So, don't you come 'rou-- BRIAN: All right. All right. BEN: They must think you're Lord God Almighty. BRIAN: What will they do to me? BEN: Oh, you'll probably get away with crucifixion. BRIAN: Crucifixion?! BEN: Yeah, first offence. BRIAN: Get away with crucifixion?! It's-- BEN: Best thing the Romans ever did for us. BRIAN: What?! BEN: Oh, yeah. If we didn't have crucifixion, this country would be in a right bloody mess. BRIAN: Guards! BEN: Nail him up, I say! BRIAN: Guards! BEN: Nail some sense into him! JAILER: cough cough What do you want? BRIAN: I want you to move me to another cell. JAILER: Ha! ptoo BRIAN: Aah! BEN: Oh, look at that! Bloody favoritism! JAILER: Shut up, you! BEN: Sorry! JAILER: Huhh. cough cough BEN: Now, take my case. They hung me up here five years ago. Every night, they take me down for twenty minutes, then they hang me up again, which I regard as very fair, in view of what I done, and, if nothing else, it's taught me to respect the Romans, and it's taught me... that you'll never get anywhere in this life, unless you're prepared to do a fair day's work for a fair day's pay! BRIAN: Oh, shut up! clank JAILER: Ehhh. CENTURION: Pilate wants to see you! BRIAN: Me? CENTURION: Come on! BRIAN: Pilate? What does he want to see me for? CENTURION: I think he wants to know which way up you want to be crucified. BEN: Oh, ha ha ha haa! Ha haa! Nice one, Centurion. Like it. Like it. CENTURION: Shut up! BEN: Right. Right. Terrific race, the Romans. Terrific."

capableweb 4y ago

> on account of not blocking / removing sacrilegious contents > Wikipedia was approached for blocking / removal of the said contents > platform neither complied by removing the blasphemous content nor appeared before the Authority. Anyone know what sacrilegious/blasphemous content they are referring to?

cactusplant7374 4y ago
Are there artistic depictions of Muhammed on Wikipedia?
- ceejayoz 4y ago
  Yes, and that's been the cause for several previous blocks. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_of_Wikipedia#Pakistan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_of_Wikipedia#Pakist...
- capableweb 4y ago
  Yes, there is in fact an entire category dedicated to "Cultural depictions of Muhammad": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Cultural_depictions_of_Muhammad https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Cultural_depictions_o... Includes a link to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_Best_Friends https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_Best_Friends (South Park episode) which contains an image of Muhammad.
- jeroenhd 4y ago
  There's an entire article about it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depictions_of_Muhammad https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depictions_of_Muhammad
- nimbius 4y ago
  while it may be tempting to condense the concern to the most virulent objections of an extreme, it bears remembrance that Pakistan is the only country to have been created in the name of Islam. the Holy Quran and Sunnah are effectively the books by which this nation is governed, and as such any charge of blasphemy is taken with a seriousness bordering on the academic. this blasphemy charge could stem from any of the big 8, but the specific charges would be laid out in an almost arduous detail to the The Federal Shariat Court to make the case. only the supreme court of Pakistan can overrule the FSC. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blasphemy_in_Pakistan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blasphemy_in_Pakistan daily Pakistan reports this is due to 'sacrilege,' a far less dire charge: https://en.dailypakistan.com.pk/01-Feb-2023/pakistan-degrades-wikipedia-services-for-48-hours-over-sacrilegious-content https://en.dailypakistan.com.pk/01-Feb-2023/pakistan-degrade... the PTA (telecom authority) is committed to ensuring a safe online experience for all Pakistani citizens according to local laws, similar to content laws in the US and UK.

ubermonkey 4y ago

Thank you, God, for your healing gift of religion.

boomboomsubban 4y ago

... Why not edit out the "offensive" material? edit I meant why didn't the Pakistani government just edit Wikipedia like any other person. I realized my post could be taken as saying "why didn't Wikipedia just do what they want" which was not what I meant.

ceejayoz 4y ago
It will be (rightly) rapidly restored.
- boomboomsubban 4y ago
  Maybe? I don't know how many editors Urdu Wikipedia has nor how many have views similar to the government, but I wonder if they even tried the official Wikipedia method.
rdevsrex 4y ago
What's offensive to someone is just scholarship to another person.
bunbun69 4y ago
Just comply bro
phone8675309 4y ago
Because Pakistan shouldn't and doesn't get veto power because some backwards religious fundamentalists don't like what's on the Internet
duxup 4y ago
Why edit it?
driverdan 4y ago
Because Wikipedia doesn't comply with censorship and rightfully so.

qwerty456127 4y ago

I can hardly imagine an idea more ridiculous than "blasphemy". The G-d is not a psychologically immature human being easy to offend. Nothing a human might possibly say can change the state of G-d from perfect harmony to anything else.

mc32 4y ago
I don't think they are afraid of offending their god. I think they fear their human worshippers devolving into worshipping the person rather than following their religion. In other words they want to avoid the historical person superseding their god.
- timeon 4y ago
  This also implies some insecurity in their god.
DharmaPolice 4y ago
That doesn't match the Abrahamic conception of God though which is the point here. In fact, that God is almost the opposite of what you've described.
- qwerty456127 4y ago
  If G-d is eternal, omnipresent, and omnipotent. How can he logically be different from what I described? He has seen everything imaginable and unimaginable countless times, will see everthing, knows everything to happen in advance, in sub-atomic details. Also knows your whole life which made your character this way so you behave exactly like you do, also all the neurotransmitter fluctuations taking place in you and what causes them inevitably, understands you better than yourself or any psychologist ever could. Imagine a terribly disabled person, crippled physically and mentally, unable to carry a kilogram for a second or multiply 2x3, traumatised to the point of insanity, striuggling from dementia. Also imagine you are a world-famous olympic athlette with four doctorate degrees in diverse areas. What if the cripple would say an insult about you, would you feel anything but compassion? This is a rough approximation of the difference between any person and the G-d.

cactusplant7374 4y ago

Twitter appears to have complied with removing the BBC documentary tweets for users in India. So some tweets are not available in India. It does look like Wikipedia is ahead of Twitter in the free speech absolutist game if it prefers being blocked to compliance.

mardifoufs 4y ago
I think he always specified that it was within the limits of local laws. Were the links removed for every country, or just in india?
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
recuter 4y ago
You're comparing a group chat to an encyclopedia...
- factsarelolz 4y ago
  > encyclopedia Encyclopedias are not warped to fit a minority groups opinion like Wikipedia is. Wikipedia is a website, not a trusted source. Not sure when Wikipedia became something more than a crowdsourced opinion site.
  - recuter 4y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reliability_of_Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reliability_of_Wikipedia
- nashashmi 4y ago
  Wikipedia has become closer to group chat. And twitter closer to valuable dissemination of first person content.
  - 4y ago

mmaunder 4y ago

Government mandated belief in a deity, and censoring contradictory content has nothing to do with belief or a god, but is designed to preserve a power structure.

pen2l 4y ago

Previously there was a comment that was quite elucidative made by an HN user here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34304824 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34304824 In recent years I've come around to viewing the American ideal of absolute "free speech" as not being all that nuanced, particularly because we know know the speed at which viral false and illegitimate claims travel and the slower speed at which reasoned responses to those speech travel. I think we can all agree that artistic depictions of Mohammad, even if they fall squarely under free speech, are something that are of poor taste because they trigger the sensibilities of a large chunk of people that abide to certain customs and norms. The hope here is that these folks come around to their viewpoints and say "sigh, I don't like what you're doing, but I'm just going to turn away". The debate is front and center, let's see how it evolves.

nailer 4y ago
Absolutely disagree. The trend of censoring people that depict Mohammed is relatively recent - nobody cared about the Superfriends episode back around 2000 - and giving in to it gives grounds to the same people that attack ex-Muslims for leaving Islam.
ghaff 4y ago
We can probably all agree that a great many things on the web are considered in poor taste by someone somewhere in the world. That doesn't mean that web content should be limited to things that no one anywhere considers in poor taste.
rootusrootus 4y ago
> I think we can all agree You'd be wrong. Many of us think that judging content by whether it offends someone is a terrible idea. Viewers should self-censor if they find something objectionable rather than subject everyone else to their personal opinions.
- pen2l 4y ago
  This is the kind of take that only exists on HN and is obviously wrong flat on its face if thought through for even a little bit. Someone can and does have the right to tell dead baby jokes to a father who has just lost a child but that doesn't mean it's okay that someone should, and indeed in a civilized and social society there are guardrails to prevent that sort of thing: that someone would get rebuked and if they continue being a jerk, that someone would in some manner be punished or rejected from that local community. We judge the content of what others find offensive all the time, and we even agree that it is subjective, different people of different ages, backgrounds, experiences have different sensibilities, and as social beings we understand and respect this. The internet of course throws a wrench in all of this because it's hard to enforce moderation on a local basis as we do in the real world. But that does not mean that the way we have been living forever goes out the window. I'm not saying we should do away with free speech, rather just that we have to work through things carefully and slowly. My hope is that after a little bit of debate, a liberal attitude prevails in Pakistan. But to respond with how folks are responding in this thread, of just putting gasoline on the fire, that's not really how progress is made, it is how we further elevate and agitate an already volatile happening -- we should probably not do that.

dec0dedab0de 4y ago

Even if the slippery slope is a logical fallacy, it's important to remember where the staircase of censorship leads.

throwayyy479087 4y ago
What about the last decade would lead you to believe the slippery slope is a fallacy? It's less a slope than a cliff.
- BowBun 4y ago
  People love to reference the logical fallacy[1] as though there have been no instances where momentum builds from a series of decisions and cascades in a massive shift. But then again, thinkers like these are happy to comfortably think about the past while many suffer, instead of applying realism towards the future. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slippery_slope https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slippery_slope
  - mynameisvlad 4y ago
    People love to cite the fallacy because it’s one that’s used a lot. Sure, momentum builds. Sometimes. But the fallacy is proclaiming with 100% certainty both that the momentum will build, and the specific way it’s going to roll. We don’t know the future. We can’t claim with certainty that something will happen as a result of another action. Claiming anything otherwise is falling right into the fallacy.
    - LarryMullins 4y ago
      Drawing a downward slope is a fallacy when you have a single datapoint and you're just asserting that the datapoint exists as part of a trend. If you have more than a single datapoint, then claiming to see a trend is no longer fallacious. In the real world, there is rarely a single datapoint. In the case of religions demanding censorship, there is A LOT of data.

yreg 4y ago

Wikipedia doesn't comply with government censorship and interestingly it is apparently so important that the national governments very often cave in. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_of_Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_of_Wikipedia Some countries used to block specific articles, but that's not possible anymore thanks to HTTPS. Local editors in such places are at risk of prosecution though.

hallqv 4y ago

[flagged]

MonkeyMalarky 4y ago
Each offshoot Abrahamic cult is worse than the last.
- LarryMullins 4y ago
  At least the second toned down on the ethnic superiority complex of the first. As did the third for that matter. Why are people so eager to give the first of those religions a pass?
- danny_codes 4y ago
  Bahai seem relatively chill.
- 34611 4y ago
  [flagged]
- dang 4y ago
  Religious flamewar is not welcome here and we ban accounts that post like this, so please don't post like this. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
baybal2 4y ago
Some context here. There were a series of large scale terrorist attacks in Pakistan recently, with recent killing 101 people. This has caused an extreme level of criticism of the government, and the government is trying desperately to find a way to do a diversion. Ban on Wikipedia is a highly visible attempt to distract Pakistani literati class from security issues. Nothing to do with religion
eldaisfish 4y ago
It is power and the drive to preserve power that is behind much of this. Religion is a convenient scapegoat in the case of islam because much of the islamic world is some combination of poor and lacking freedom. Islam is also in the relatively unique situation of mixing religion with politics that leads to the power struggle in the first place.

meindnoch 4y ago

Oh no! Anyway...

kunley 4y ago

According to the believers views, Allah intercepts this traffic by himself :D

type0 4y ago

Other big most visited web-pages need to degrade their connection in to Pakistan in solidarity with Wikipedia, if they care even one bit about free and open Web, otherwise it will never stop and more and more countries will use these methods to get their demands through.

robofanatic 4y ago

> PTA is committed to ensuring a safe online experience for all Pakistani citizens according to local laws. seriously what could go wrong in that country if the content is not blocked?

ac2023 4y ago

I remember being unable to access Wikipedia when I was in Turkey

temp-amp 4y ago

I don't know why anyone is surprised. Internet is censored in one form or other by almost all countries. And if censorship is hurting business, companies comply to the demands. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Internet_censorship_by_country https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Internet_censorship_b... As for Wikipedia I know it's not a business, but the above logic of countries controlling access of content applies here. It's not the first time or first country censoring Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_of_Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_of_Wikipedia I think we need to understand the main cause behind all this. One thing we need to understand more which is not the cause but symptom the right & left wing populism across world. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right-wing_populism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right-wing_populism

eruci 4y ago

This ongoing stupidity reminds me of this poem: What if What if an AI writes a blasphemy? and the faithful already are asking for its beheading? I also thought of something else to write, but I'd rather not for I also have a head one can chop. https://random-poem.com/What https://random-poem.com/What

rocknor 4y ago

The creation of Pakistan is one of the biggest mistakes in modern history. The only country created on the basis of religion, thanks to the nonsensical Two Nation Theory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two-nation_theory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two-nation_theory. It was created so Muslims can be safe in their own country, but ironically Muslims in India enjoy a way better life and future prospects. As an Indian I wish the country gets rid of its weird Muslim superiority complex and adopts secular values so peace between our nations becomes a real possiblity.

hulitu 4y ago
> The creation of Pakistan is one of the biggest mistakes in modern history. The UK would like to politely dissagree.

amriksohata 4y ago

Hindus are constantly persecuted in Pakistan under so called blasphemy laws