Internet censorship in Pakistan
[2] In mid-2012 Pakistanis had relatively easy access to a wide range of content, including most sexual, political, social, and religious sites on the Internet.
Online civil society activism that began in order to protect free expression in the country continues to expand as citizens utilize new media to disseminate information and organize.
The Pakistan government blocked access to the social media platform around the time of the 2024 February elections, citing national security concerns.
Activists challenging the ban argue that it was designed to suppress dissent following the February 8 general elections, which were marred by widespread claims of vote rigging and subsequent protests.
[8] In April 2024, the Sindh High Court ordered the government to restore access to the platform within one week, according to a report by the AFP news agency, citing lawyer Moiz Jaaferi, who had launched a separate challenge against the ban.
[9] Despite this order, access to X has been sporadic, with availability fluctuating based on the internet service provider, forcing users to rely on virtual private networks (VPNs), as noted by Alp Toker of NetBlocks.
[10] Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party, a prolific user of social media platforms, has been particularly impacted by this ban.
[13] Asad Baig, a media strategist at Dawn News said that “The government’s actions reek of authoritarianism, stifling dissent, and silencing voices in the name of maintaining control.”[14] Several condemnations of the ban were also exchanged by many non-governmental organizations.
The PIE monitors all incoming and outgoing Internet traffic from Pakistan, as well as e-mail and keywords, and stores data for a specified amount of time.
[17] In early March 2004, the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) ordered Internet service providers (ISPs) to monitor access to all pornographic content.
[citation needed] In March 2012, the Pakistan government took the unusual step of touting for firms that could help build it a nationwide content-filtering service.
[18] Academic and research institutions as well as private commercial entities had until 16 March to submit their proposals, according to the request's detailed 35-point system requirements list.
Key among these is the following: "Each box should be able to handle a block list of up to 50 million URLs (concurrent unidirectional filtering capacity) with processing delay of not more than 1 milliseconds".
In announcing the decision, Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, said, "We will not accept any excuse or technical objection on this issue because it relates to the sentiments of the entire Muslim world.
A three-member bench headed by Chief Justice Chaudhry, summoned the country's Attorney General as well as senior communication ministry officials to give a report of "concrete measures for implementation of the court's order".
The bench issued directions to the Attorney General of Pakistan, Makhdoom Ali Khan, to assist the court on how it could exercise jurisdiction to prevent the availability of blasphemous material on websites the world over.
[37][38] In September 2012, the PTA blocked the video-sharing website YouTube for not removing an anti-Islamic film made in the United States, Innocence of Muslims, which mocks Muhammed.
[47] On 25 November 2017, the NetBlocks internet shutdown observatory and Digital Rights Foundation identified mass-scale blocking of social media and content-sharing websites including YouTube, Twitter and Facebook throughout Pakistan imposed by the government in response to the violent Tehreek-e-Labaik protests.
[48][49][50] The technical investigation found that all major Pakistani fixed-line and mobile service providers were affected by the restrictions, which were lifted by the PTA the next day when protests abated following the resignation of Minister for Law and Justice Zahid Hamid.
[citation needed] The ban was lifted on Tuesday 7 February 2023, with the PM Office stating, "Blocking the site in its entirety was not a suitable measure to restrict access to some objectionable contents and sacrilegious matter on it.
On 17 April 2024, Pakistan's interior ministry told the Islamabad High Court that the block was amid general election over national security concerns.
[57] In June 2013, the Citizen Lab interdisciplinary research laboratory uncovered that Canadian internet-filtering product Netsweeper to be in use at the national level in Pakistan.
According to the report published by the lab, "Netsweeper technology is being implemented in Pakistan for purposes of political and social filtering, including websites of secessionist movements, sensitive religious topics, and independent media.
[59][60][61] Since then, dating apps like Tinder are banned in Pakistan, video sharing app named TikTok faced a temporary ban til removed content; issued notices to U.S.A. based Ahmadiyya community web portal TrueIslam.com, Google and Wikipedia for returning search results displaying Ahmadiyya community and their leadership, Mirza Masroor Ahmad, 's claims of Muslimness.
