ISLAMABAD: The Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) on Friday blocked internet access to Wikipedia in the country due to the website’s refusal to remove allegedly offensive or blasphemy material, JEE News reported on Saturday.
Earlier, the telecom regulator had curtailed the portal’s services in the country.
When a PTA spokesperson was contacted late on Friday night and asked about the blocking of Wikipedia, the official confirmed that “yes” it has been blocked.
On the direction of the High Court, the PTA disrupted access to the encyclopedia and slowed down the website for 48 hours because it contained obscene content.
A PTA spokesperson said Wikipedia was approached to block/remove the said content by issuing a notice under applicable law and court order(s).
An opportunity of hearing was also provided. However, the platform neither complied to removing the blasphemous content nor appeared before the authority.
In view of the platform’s willful failure to comply with PTA directives, Wikipedia services were down for 48 hours with instructions to block/remove the reported content.
In case of non-compliance by Wikipedia, the platform is blocked within Pakistan.
Maintenance of Wikipedia services will be reconsidered if reported illegal content is blocked/removed.
Commenting on the development, digital rights activist Osama Khalji criticized the authorities for blocking the information portal.
“Wikipedia, the world’s largest encyclopedia, is blocked in Pakistan by @PTAofficialpk.”
The Bolobhi director said the courts and the regulator should understand that Wikipedia is a crowdsourced platform where anyone with an account can edit an article, instead of blocking the entire website.
Wikipedia, World’s largest encyclopaedia, appears to be blocked in Pakistan by @PTAofficialpk
— Usama Khilji (@UsamaKhilji) February 3, 2023
Courts & regulator must realise that Wikipedia is a crowd-sourced platform where anyone with an account can edit articles, which they can also do instead of blocking the entire website pic.twitter.com/wIEZzGktio
