Pakistan Blocks Twitter Over ‘Blasphemy’
Pakistan has blocked Twitter over “blasphemous content” on the microblogging website, according to a senior government official.
The site had reportedly refused to remove tweets promoting a Facebook competition involving caricatures of the Prophet Mohammed.
Islam strictly prohibits the depiction of any prophet as blasphemous.
“This has been done under the directions of the ministry of information technology. It’s because of blasphemous content,” Mohammed Yaseen, chairman of the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA), told Reuters.
“They (the ministry) have been discussing with them (Twitter) for some time now requesting them to remove some particular content.”
I found out about this and tweeted this bilge:
Pakistan has barred Twitter from its 177 million citizens due to “blasphemy.” How will they find out about stupid shit? bit.ly/Ju1uHl— Charlie Vogel (@teleskiguy) May 21, 2012
Not to say that Twitter is nothing but worthless crap, it isn’t. But it can be if you want it to be.
Update: Pakistan has restored Twitter.