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Pakistan

Wikipedia asks Pakistan to restore access to its service

The Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) has banned popular online encyclopedia Wikipedia in the country, it...
Published February 4, 2023

Wikipedia, the popular and free online encyclopedia, has asked Pakistan to restore access to its service in the country, saying that it does not make decisions around what content is included on its platform. This comes after the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) banned Wikipedia in the country for not taking down "sacreligious content".

In a post on Twitter, Wikimedia Foundation, the charity that runs Wikipedia, confirmed the suspension, saying that other Wikimedia projects in the country were also banned.

The foundation called on Pakistan "to restore access to Wikipedia and Wikimedia projects in the country immediately".

It said that in Pakistan, English Wikipedia receives more than 50 million pageviews per month, followed by Urdu and Russian Wikipedias.

"There is also a sizable and engaged community of editors in Pakistan that contribute historical and educational content.

A block of Wikipedia in Pakistan denies the fifth most populous nation in the world access to the largest free knowledge repository. If it continues, it will also deprive everyone access to Pakistan’s knowledge, history, and culture," it said.

The foundation further said that it hopes that the Pakistan government restores access to Wikipedia and Wikimedia projects promptly, "so that the people of Pakistan can continue to receive and share knowledge with the world".

Earlier this week, the PTA degraded Wikipedia services in the country "on account of not blocking/removing sacrilegious content", without specifying what the content was.

The authority stated that Wikipedia was approached for blocking the content by issuing a notice under applicable law and court order(s).

An opportunity of hearing was also provided, it said, but the platform neither took down the content nor appeared before the Authority.

PTA degrades Wikipedia services

The restoration of the services of Wikipedia will be reconsidered subject to the content being deleted, PTA said.

Comments

Comments are closed.

Hilarious Feb 04, 2023 03:39pm
The only thing immoral and unethical Pakistani governments excel at, that’s all they’re good for and that is the limit of their brain functions. Banning serves no purpose, just shows utter weakness on the part of the government and the country also shows how weak and emotionally immature the followers of the religion are, laughably sad.
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Mian M N Shaite Feb 04, 2023 04:45pm
The world does not care if Pk hypocrites do an ostrich and bury their heads in doodoo. Banning websites will not solve the collective moral degradation and bigoted thinking found in abundance there.
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Umair Feb 04, 2023 07:22pm
@Hilarious, to some extent u r right.. but most of ur words r an indication of the grudge that u hold inside
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TimeToMovveOn Feb 04, 2023 07:32pm
Wikipedia should be banned in Pakistan in the name of religion. So no Pakistani get the benefit of one of the most amazing intellectual platform this world has ever discovered.
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KhanRA Feb 04, 2023 09:39pm
Wikipedia does not need a Pakistan to flourish. This is a stupid move by a deeply incompetent government, which does not even seem to understand how Wikipedia works. They do not just remove contact based on the demand of any government. That’s not how it works. This which should be focusing all its attention on the problems of this country.
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TimeToMovveOn Feb 04, 2023 10:14pm
Priorities of this govt * Arrest anyone who they feel like * Ban Wikipedia * Celebrate Kashmir Solidarity Day on Feb 5 Can you imagine the IMF team scratching their heads like.. and we are loaning these people money. Lets up the conditions a bit more. Fixing Terrorism, economic decline, electricity, foreign reserves, they all can wait.
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