Wikipedia has been blocked in Pakistan for failure to delete some content material judged “sacrilegious” by authorities
Blasphemy is prohibited in Pakistan, a Muslim-majority nation of over 230 million, and can lead to a dying sentence for the offender.
Today, a number of information sources, citing Pakistan‘s media regulator, reported that fashionable on-line encyclopedia Wikipedia has been blocked in South Asian nation for failure to delete some content material judged “sacrilegious” by the Pakistani authorities.
The Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) introduced that it had “degraded” Wikipedia’s service within the nation for 48 hours as a warning. According to the regulator, the web site ignored a request to take away unspecified “blasphemous contents.”
According to Malahat Obaid, spokesman for PTA, the company was in touch with Wikipedia over the problem. Obaid mentioned that entry to the web encyclopedia can be restored if it complies with PTA’s calls for.
“The platform neither complied by removing the blasphemous content nor appeared before the Authority,” the PTA mentioned in official assertion on its web site.
The regulator added that its mission was to take care of “a safe online experience for all Pakistani citizens according to local laws.”
In 2020, the PTA despatched official notices to Wikipedia and Google, demanding the elimination of “offensive” content material.
The common mentioned on the time that it had acquired complaints about Wikipedia displaying cartoons that ridiculed the Prophet Mohammed, amongst different issues.
Wikipedia is a multilingual free on-line encyclopedia written and maintained by a group of volunteers, generally known as Wikipedians, by open collaboration and utilizing a wiki-based modifying system.
Wikipedia is the biggest and most-read reference work in historical past. It is constantly one of many 10 hottest web sites ranked by Similarweb and previously Alexa.
As of 2022, Wikipedia was ranked the fifth hottest web site on the planet.
Wikipedia is hosted by the Wikimedia Foundation, an American non-profit group funded primarily by donations.
