YouTube Offensive Video’s Cause Blocks

February 26th, 2008 Posted in News

A worldwide blackout of popular internet site, YouTube, for more than an hour on Sunday has been attributed to Pakistani authorities who took offence at some of its content said to insult the beliefs of Islam.

It is claimed that Pakistan ordered its internet service providers to block the site. They apparently did this by ‘hijacking’ YouTube’s web server address. This would have meant that anyone in Pakistan attempting to log onto YouTube would have been re-directed to a different address.

Due to a leak from the Pakistan Telecom and Asian internet service provider, PCCW, this lead to a YouTube block by ISP’s around the world. The block was lifted once engineers at YouTube told PCCW about the issue.

Leading net professionals claim this was a genuine mistake and not meant to be in any way malicious.

Reports were made that the ban was because of a cartoon that appeared on YouTube depicting the Prophet Muhammad but others claim it was a trailer for a forthcoming film that cast Islam in a bad light.

Pakistani YouTube fans were in uproar over the decision. Blocking total websites is not the answer and has a knock on effect to other users. The Pakistani authorities are currently looking for a way of resolving the issue.

This follows a YouTube block in Morocco last May when users were unable to connect to the site for some time. Authorities claim it was a technical problem but many can’t understand how you can have a ‘technical problem’ on just one site.

It had been linked to videos critical of Morocco’s reactions in Western Sahara but the authorities claim the issue of YouTube blocking was nothing to do with them.

August 2007 also saw a block on YouTube usage – this time in Thailand. Video clips were being shared that were considered to be insulting to Thai King Bhumibol Adulyadej. In this case, the authorities admitted their intervention and now say YouTube videos will be filtered for any offence articles, stating that insults towards the king were punishable with a 15 year prison sentence.