YouTube Videos Blocked in Pakistan

News reports are coming in that Google’s popular video sharing service Youtube was blocked in Pakistan by the Pakistan Telecommunications Authority (PTA) for objectionable video content.

Shafiq Rehman, a blogger living in Lahore, Pakistan says

“Pakistan Telecommunication Authority issued a notice today to all ISPs in Pakistan to block few URLs which were related to election rigging. Since Pakistani service providers didn’t have proper infrastructure to block individual URLs, they blocked the whole domain.”

Teeth Maestro posts the message sent out by ISP’s to customers.

“The site would remain blocked till further orders from PTA. Meanwhile, Internet users can write to youtube.com to remove the objectionable web content/movies because this removal would enable the authorities to order un-blocking of this web site.”

Pakistaniat.com says that

“the general opinion is that the ban is more “political” than “cultural”. A large number of videos with actual footages of electoral rigging were placed on YouTube and the view is that the “ban” or the “technical difficulties” that have come up are really a way to distract attention in Pakistan away from these videos, at least for the time being.”

The Daily Times reports that

“The order, issued by the director enforcement agency, says that the ratio of “non-Islamic objectionable video” has increased on the website. Following the order, all local ISPs have blocked the website from their servers. “The site would remain blocked till further orders from the PTA,” a local ISP worker said”

Sizlopedia enlists some ways you can bypass the ban and unblock Youtube using Proxy sites, free proxy servers, or URL-to-Hex Converters.