Pakistani gov degrades Wikipedia connections due to blasphemy

https://www.pta.gov.pk/en/media-center/single-media/wikipedia-services-degraded-over-unlawful-content-010223

by flipbrad • 3 years ago

171 197 3 years ago

pta.gov.pk

flipbrad• 3 years ago

"Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) has degraded Wikipedia services in the country on account of not blocking / removing sacrilegious contents.

Wikipedia was approached for blocking / removal of the said contents by issuing a notice under applicable law and court order(s). An opportunity of hearing was also provided, however, the platform neither complied by removing the blasphemous content nor appeared before the Authority.

Given the intentional failure on part of the platform to comply with the directions of PTA, the services of Wikipedia have been degraded for 48 hours with the direction to block / remove the reported contents. In case of non-compliance by Wikipedia the platform will be blocked within Pakistan.

The restoration of the services of Wikipedia will be reconsidered subject to blocking / removal of the reported unlawful contents. PTA is committed to ensuring a safe online experience for all Pakistani citizens according to local laws."

beardyw• 3 years ago

I am trying to think why Wikipedia would care about this. They offer a free service - if you don't want it that's just disappointing.

brmgb• 3 years ago

Then everyone in Pakistan gets deprived of a valuable source of knowledge on virtue of their government being obscurantist.

kemayo• 3 years ago

An ideological commitment to free knowledge, mostly. It's upsetting to be cut off from people who could use it.

jl62• 3 years ago

They might care that Pakistani Wikipedia editors and readers alike could find themselves targeted by the Pakistani authorities.

skitter• 3 years ago

Because people who don't want to access Wikipedia already can decide to not access it, but the ones who want to can't. Pakistan is not a singular person.

throwaway092232• 3 years ago

They don't care. They know people can get around the blocks.

Wikipedia is more valuable with accurate content, even if some countries make it harder to access.

unixlikeposting• 3 years ago

They also offer a paid service, with Google notably a customer.

psyfi• 3 years ago

Because the law of a country (a very populated country) prohibits it.

In the same sense they supposedly would remove whatever violates hate speech laws or copyright laws in some other countries that the ones they operate in.

robofanatic2• 3 years ago

PTA is committed to ensuring a safe online experience for all Pakistani citizens according to local laws.

How would Pakistani citizens be unsafe if that content remains? will there be total chaos? riots? more suicide bombings?

ParrotRaj• 3 years ago

Citizens would read blashpemous material, commit blashpemy and then will be lynched by the crowd

Wish it was a joke but sadly lynching due to alleged blashpemy is a huge issue in pakistan. Recently a Sri Lankan citizen was burned alive with a few hundred witnesses who just watched.

LinuxBender3• 3 years ago

Archive Version [1]

[1] https://archive.ph/cKPf8

LinuxBender3• 3 years ago

I would love wag the finger but first I would have to clean up my own country, the United States of America. When the US government stops pressuring social media platforms to censor speech and they stop happily complying then perhaps I might have room to criticize other nations.

[Edit] And how should this be addressed in the US? Simple. Only censor things that are explicitly and clearly illegal under federal law and the laws of the state the company is headquartered in. If another state has an issue with that, then they must create their own competing platform.

Machine learning, what people today are mistakenly calling "AI" must tag anything that is not explicitly illegal with unobtrusive labels such as "hate speech" or "propaganda" or "misinformation" and so on.... Each label must link to the Machine Learning "Showing Its Work" to describe in detail exactly how it reached that conclusion and the members of the platform must have a way to contest and override the labels. The posts must show how many people disagree with said labels. No hidden algorithms, no hidden data-sets. The Machine Learning must show its work and show its references.

Members must have the ability to hide any content that has labels they do not wish to see just like the capabilities in StackExchange.

bryan0• 3 years ago

There’s plenty of room to criticize both

serverholic6• 3 years ago

What I’ve realized is that people in general are largely incapable of nuance.

- Things are either bad or good.

- Only one side can be right which means the other side is automagically wrong.

- Multiple things can’t be true at the same time.

- etc.

cocacola1• 3 years ago

This seems to be a case of letting the perfect be the enemy of the good.

Spivak• 3 years ago

And also equivocating “pressuring companies to deal with their hate speech problem which makes online communities best case unwelcome, worst case unsafe for the people and groups being targeted” and “censoring religious blasphemy to try and maintain existing theocratic power structures.”

Like when the US actually starts trying to censor ideas rather than their hateful expressions I’ll start to be worried. Because lord knows it is your god given right to be an absolute piece of shit writing think pieces about all your bigoted opinions but content like /r/c__ntown is just hate with no substance at all.

ceejayoz6• 3 years ago

"Someone reported this to the FBI, it's not actionable on a criminal level, but it breaks your TOS, heads-up" versus "we have deleted the encyclopedia for religious reasons". Yep, definitely comparable scenarios.

Blasphemy carries the death penalty in Pakistan. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blasphemy_in_Pakistan

LinuxBender3• 3 years ago

Yep, definitely comparable scenarios.

I think it is. Pakastan can create whatever laws fit its culture. I would never dare to imagine imposing my values or beliefs on them. They should create their own Wiki alternative and make it popular within their nation.

[Edit] Or if their people see fit change their laws, overthrow their government or whatever they deem appropriate for their culture. But that is entirely on them. Now if they want to ask how to bypass censorship, I would be happy to provide a myriad of methods just as I did for the Iranians that posted here in the recent past.

signatoremo• 3 years ago

There are plenty of articles critical of content censoring on HN already. I’d wager that the majority of censor criticism on HN are about the US. Very rarely about any other country. What are you waiting for?

syntheticnature2• 3 years ago

"Tu quoque" is a logical fallacy.

whizzter• 3 years ago

US Laws are why people aren't posting classic European art because one nipple and you're gone.

rootusrootus3• 3 years ago

What laws, exactly? US Wikipedia has many images far more graphic than a nipple. We have television with full frontal nudity (both genders). Maybe you're thinking of broadcast television, which does have relatively strong restrictions before 10pm (IIRC, could be off on the exact time of day).

duxup2• 3 years ago

What law does that?

weberer• 3 years ago

There are no laws against that.

mrguyorama2• 3 years ago

You can literally post nudity on YouTube if it's educational or art, and can convince the dumb ML black box of that. You can just host a website with drawings of naked people if you want. Hell, you could host a website with naked Muhammad and there's nothing the US can do to you.

For reference, I was using one of "those" sites during the 2016 election, and an actual ad next to my chosen video was one of Donald Trump doing Hillary from behind with great gusto.

It's not a crime. It was also hilarious.

Hizonner2• 3 years ago

Only censor things that are explicitly and clearly illegal under federal law and the laws of the state the company is headquartered in.

"Congress shall make no law"...

computerfriend• 3 years ago

I would love wag the finger but first I would have to clean up my own country

Your own country and its cleanliness is totally irrelevant to Pakistan censoring Wikipedia.

robertlagrant4• 3 years ago

I'm starting to view more and more things as nationalism vs globalism.

E.g. multinational corporations vs national tax laws

E.g. global internet services vs national privacy laws

E.g. global internet services vs national decency laws (the posted issue)

I'm starting to realise this mismatch is where a lot of friction is and will continue to be.

toomuchtodo• 3 years ago

The demand and struggle for power is what maintains tension in perpetuity. There is no end, just shifts.

syntheticnature2• 3 years ago

Makes me think, though it's not 1:1, of a book I read in college called _Jihad vs. McWorld_

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jihad_vs._McWorld

jacooper3• 3 years ago

Its not nationalism, but fairness. If nationally you can't just work people all week, then an american company with unlimited VC money, selling its user data to everybody and working its workers to death will absolutely crush any local or neighboring competitor.

There must be limits, because as we have seen, globalism as its currently is basically american everything.

robertlagrant4• 3 years ago

There must be limits

There are limits. There is no unlimited VC money, and America's a crazy place to give an example of as having no workers' rights.

spankalee• 3 years ago

Decency laws is too kind of way to put this - they're forcing their religion on others.

If countries would stop censoring free speech, we wouldn't have the problem at all.

noorkersz2• 3 years ago

but I see this worse:

individual humans vs the collective groups which we come together to form;

like employees vs their own company

humans vs corporations but corporations are made (in part) from humans.

heck, it's like we're having some kind of an autoimmune reaction: the cells in a single individual human fighting against the individual human.

...but hey, for most of my life people chose to say I'm crazy and ignore what I say.

nathan_compton• 3 years ago

"like employees vs their own company"

For most employees their company is not their own. They don't own any of it. Employees, in my opinion, have no other obligation to their employers beyond what is outlined in their contract and any employee who thinks otherwise has been bamboozled. Never settle for a "sense of ownership." If a company wants me to have a "sense of ownership" they should let me actually own part of the company.

labrador• 3 years ago

4chan is way ahead of you. They call it (pardon me) "globalhomo"

https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=globalhomo

Edit: To be clear, I don't support the views expressed in 4chan. I don't participate, but I read because I find it interesting. I often think I should have been an anthropologist.

yamtaddle• 3 years ago

This has been a major topic in political science at least since neoliberalism became the bi-partisan consensus world view of both viable US political parties in the mid to late '80s. Stateless corporations, neocolonialism, intergovernmental regulatory regimes, et c., et c. By the '00s, at the latest, it was probably at the top of a very short list of topics that were receiving a ton of attention in the field.

The Tobin Tax and other policy ideas in response to the whole thing, concerns about interconnectedness leading to economic fragility and new kinds of global economic risk (as in e.g. the '97 "Asian Contagion", a domino-effect economic collapse that was only stopped by massive foreign [largely US] and IGO [largely IMF] intervention), the implications for state sovereignty, all that stuff's been covered and considered extensively for quite a while.

psiops• 3 years ago

No links to the sacrilicious content. Shame.

auctoritas• 3 years ago

Similar things are happening in the West given US and Euro govts leaning on Social Media companies to censor dissenting/blasphemous views. Just think - what are you not allowed to say? What will get you banned or blacklisted?

ceejayoz6• 3 years ago

Can you define "similar", please?

The FBI sending Twitter emails about TOS violations they noticed and being executed for being an atheist are "similar" only if you really torture the definition.

mistermann• 3 years ago

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tower_of_Babel

sidlls• 3 years ago

"banned or blacklisted" vs "executed by the state". Definitely equivalent.

The West, in general, within its own territory, is better on just about every civil rights issue than places like Pakistan and China. That doesn't mean it's good: places like Pakistan and China set a pretty low bar.

hulitu7• 3 years ago

The West, in general, within its own territory, is better on just about every civil rights issue than places like Pakistan and China.

" Another Bleedin Monty Python Website banner image image HomeTV Series Holy Grail Meaning of LifeLife of BrianSilly Links Life of Brian Script Scene 12: Brian Earns Jailor's Pet Title The sketch: eerie music

VOICE: Huo!

whip

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clank

whump

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clank

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BEN: Manacles! Ooh oooh oh oh. My idea of heaven is to be allowed to be put in manacles... just for a few hours. They must think the sun shines out o' your arse, sonny.

BRIAN: Oh, lay off me. I've had a hard time!

BEN: You've had a hard time?! I've been here five years! They only hung me the right way up yesterday! So, don't you come 'rou--

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BEN: They must think you're Lord God Almighty.

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BEN: Now, take my case. They hung me up here five years ago. Every night, they take me down for twenty minutes, then they hang me up again, which I regard as very fair, in view of what I done, and, if nothing else, it's taught me to respect the Romans, and it's taught me... that you'll never get anywhere in this life, unless you're prepared to do a fair day's work for a fair day's pay!

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clank

JAILER: Ehhh.

CENTURION: Pilate wants to see you!

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BEN: Right. Right. Terrific race, the Romans. Terrific."

cactusplant73743• 3 years ago

How similar is it though? The US sent emails with suggestions to Twitter. Pakistan is threatening/will block Wikipedia.

Karsteski• 3 years ago

What would have happened had Twitter not complied with said suggestions? To the company, to the executives, to regular employees?

The threat of that is very real.

capableweb2• 3 years ago

on account of not blocking / removing sacrilegious contents
Wikipedia was approached for blocking / removal of the said contents
platform neither complied by removing the blasphemous content nor appeared before the Authority.

Anyone know what sacrilegious/blasphemous content they are referring to?

cactusplant73743• 3 years ago

Are there artistic depictions of Muhammed on Wikipedia?

ceejayoz6• 3 years ago

Yes, and that's been the cause for several previous blocks.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_of_Wikipedia#Pakist...

capableweb2• 3 years ago

Yes, there is in fact an entire category dedicated to "Cultural depictions of Muhammad": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Cultural_depictions_o...

Includes a link to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_Best_Friends (South Park episode) which contains an image of Muhammad.

jeroenhd• 3 years ago

There's an entire article about it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depictions_of_Muhammad

nimbius• 3 years ago

while it may be tempting to condense the concern to the most virulent objections of an extreme, it bears remembrance that Pakistan is the only country to have been created in the name of Islam. the Holy Quran and Sunnah are effectively the books by which this nation is governed, and as such any charge of blasphemy is taken with a seriousness bordering on the academic.

this blasphemy charge could stem from any of the big 8, but the specific charges would be laid out in an almost arduous detail to the The Federal Shariat Court to make the case. only the supreme court of Pakistan can overrule the FSC.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blasphemy_in_Pakistan

daily Pakistan reports this is due to 'sacrilege,' a far less dire charge:

https://en.dailypakistan.com.pk/01-Feb-2023/pakistan-degrade...

the PTA (telecom authority) is committed to ensuring a safe online experience for all Pakistani citizens according to local laws, similar to content laws in the US and UK.

bobmaxup• 3 years ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jyllands-Posten_Muhammad_carto...

_Algernon_4• 3 years ago

The Wikipedia article about Charlie Hebdo has one. I assume it is not the only one:

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlie_Hebdo_issue_No._1178

boomboomsubban3• 3 years ago

This article https://www.geo.tv/latest/468510-pakistan-warns-blocking-wik... says depictions of Muhammad and saying this person https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mirza_Masroor_Ahmad is a Muslim. I'm not sure if that press conference was over the 2020 issue or the current one.

hnews_account_1• 3 years ago

They disowned their one Nobel laureate and maybe one of the greatest minds of his generation because of his Islam being different from their Islam. That place is a failed nation. Thank fuck for the internet so the people aren’t insulated from the outside world.

qwerty4561274• 3 years ago

I can hardly imagine an idea more ridiculous than "blasphemy". The G-d is not a psychologically immature human being easy to offend. Nothing a human might possibly say can change the state of G-d from perfect harmony to anything else.

mc32• 3 years ago

I don't think they are afraid of offending their god. I think they fear their human worshippers devolving into worshipping the person rather than following their religion. In other words they want to avoid the historical person superseding their god.

timeon• 3 years ago

This also implies some insecurity in their god.

DharmaPolice2• 3 years ago

That doesn't match the Abrahamic conception of God though which is the point here. In fact, that God is almost the opposite of what you've described.

qwerty4561274• 3 years ago

If G-d is eternal, omnipresent, and omnipotent. How can he logically be different from what I described? He has seen everything imaginable and unimaginable countless times, will see everthing, knows everything to happen in advance, in sub-atomic details. Also knows your whole life which made your character this way so you behave exactly like you do, also all the neurotransmitter fluctuations taking place in you and what causes them inevitably, understands you better than yourself or any psychologist ever could.

Imagine a terribly disabled person, crippled physically and mentally, unable to carry a kilogram for a second or multiply 2x3, traumatised to the point of insanity, striuggling from dementia. Also imagine you are a world-famous olympic athlette with four doctorate degrees in diverse areas. What if the cripple would say an insult about you, would you feel anything but compassion? This is a rough approximation of the difference between any person and the G-d.

_Algernon_4• 3 years ago

Why are you selfcensoring "God"?

galleywest200• 3 years ago

This is common in Judaism. I am not Jewish, so someone please correct me: I understand taking the name in vain or destroying the word once written are a no-go -- so if you never write it then there is not a big issue here.

LarryMullins6• 3 years ago

So as to not commit blasphemy of course... wait a second!

TheCapeGreek• 3 years ago

I believe it's a Jewish practice relating to avoiding idolatry.

IMO a little bit ironic considering the post contents.

w0de0• 3 years ago

To avoid blasphemy.

qwerty4561274• 3 years ago

I just enjoy writing it this way in accordance with what some bibilical traditions suggest. Sort of OCD/perfectionism. I could come up with many explanations if I had time&mood.

welshwelsh• 3 years ago

That's very different from the god described in the bible or the quran.

There was this one time where god got so mad, he flooded the whole earth, killing everyone. He was upset because people weren't worshipping him enough. So basically like Stalin, but worse.

roncesvalles2• 3 years ago

The G-d is not a psychologically immature human being easy to offend. Nothing a human might possibly say can change the state of G-d from perfect harmony to anything else.

That's a very idealized and personal definition of God. I suspect that the God that most religious people believe in is closer to how North Koreans think about Kim Il Sung.

balozi• 3 years ago

"Blasphemy" as an excuse is no better or worse than its American cousins such as "election interference" and "sowing discord/disunity" as an excuse for quashing rights of expression.

jollyllama• 3 years ago

How do you feel about banning hate speech? Blasphemy can be viewed by a believer of any faith as hate speech against God. Likewise, hate speech can be viewed as blasphemy against the values of liberalism.

RichardCA• 3 years ago

That's not an example of blashpemy. Being an apoligist for hate speech would be more accurately described as a form of heresy.

ubermonkey• 3 years ago

Thank you, God, for your healing gift of religion.

boomboomsubban3• 3 years ago

... Why not edit out the "offensive" material?

edit I meant why didn't the Pakistani government just edit Wikipedia like any other person. I realized my post could be taken as saying "why didn't Wikipedia just do what they want" which was not what I meant.

ceejayoz6• 3 years ago

It will be (rightly) rapidly restored.

boomboomsubban3• 3 years ago

Maybe? I don't know how many editors Urdu Wikipedia has nor how many have views similar to the government, but I wonder if they even tried the official Wikipedia method.

rdevsrex• 3 years ago

What's offensive to someone is just scholarship to another person.

bunbun69• 3 years ago

Just comply bro

phone86753092• 3 years ago

Because Pakistan shouldn't and doesn't get veto power because some backwards religious fundamentalists don't like what's on the Internet

duxup2• 3 years ago

Why edit it?

driverdan• 3 years ago

Because Wikipedia doesn't comply with censorship and rightfully so.

cactusplant73743• 3 years ago

Twitter appears to have complied with removing the BBC documentary tweets for users in India. So some tweets are not available in India.

It does look like Wikipedia is ahead of Twitter in the free speech absolutist game if it prefers being blocked to compliance.

recuter5• 3 years ago

You're comparing a group chat to an encyclopedia...

factsarelolz• 3 years ago

encyclopedia

Encyclopedias are not warped to fit a minority groups opinion like Wikipedia is. Wikipedia is a website, not a trusted source. Not sure when Wikipedia became something more than a crowdsourced opinion site.

nashashmi• 3 years ago

Wikipedia has become closer to group chat. And twitter closer to valuable dissemination of first person content.

freeqaz• 3 years ago

I'd describe Twitter as closer to a news site in the modern era. There are a lot of journalists and other important public figures sharing information there, and that's especially true for important live news events like earthquakes. (Twitter is the first place I check if I feel the house shake, for example.)

LarryMullins6• 3 years ago

Specifically with respect to receiving censorship demands from foreign governments, what is the meaningful difference between the two?

hulitu7• 3 years ago

You're comparing a group chat to an encyclopedia...

Wikipedia is also a "grup chat". Just look at the history of any page. (Hint: discussion).

mardifoufs• 3 years ago

I think he always specified that it was within the limits of local laws. Were the links removed for every country, or just in india?

mmaunder• 3 years ago

Government mandated belief in a deity, and censoring contradictory content has nothing to do with belief or a god, but is designed to preserve a power structure.

pen2l2• 3 years ago

Previously there was a comment that was quite elucidative made by an HN user here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34304824

In recent years I've come around to viewing the American ideal of absolute "free speech" as not being all that nuanced, particularly because we know know the speed at which viral false and illegitimate claims travel and the slower speed at which reasoned responses to those speech travel.

I think we can all agree that artistic depictions of Mohammad, even if they fall squarely under free speech, are something that are of poor taste because they trigger the sensibilities of a large chunk of people that abide to certain customs and norms. The hope here is that these folks come around to their viewpoints and say "sigh, I don't like what you're doing, but I'm just going to turn away". The debate is front and center, let's see how it evolves.

nailer• 3 years ago

Absolutely disagree. The trend of censoring people that depict Mohammed is relatively recent - nobody cared about the Superfriends episode back around 2000 - and giving in to it gives grounds to the same people that attack ex-Muslims for leaving Islam.

ghaff• 3 years ago

We can probably all agree that a great many things on the web are considered in poor taste by someone somewhere in the world. That doesn't mean that web content should be limited to things that no one anywhere considers in poor taste.

rootusrootus3• 3 years ago

I think we can all agree

You'd be wrong. Many of us think that judging content by whether it offends someone is a terrible idea. Viewers should self-censor if they find something objectionable rather than subject everyone else to their personal opinions.

pen2l2• 3 years ago

This is the kind of take that only exists on HN and is obviously wrong flat on its face if thought through for even a little bit. Someone can and does have the right to tell dead baby jokes to a father who has just lost a child but that doesn't mean it's okay that someone should, and indeed in a civilized and social society there are guardrails to prevent that sort of thing: that someone would get rebuked and if they continue being a jerk, that someone would in some manner be punished or rejected from that local community.

We judge the content of what others find offensive all the time, and we even agree that it is subjective, different people of different ages, backgrounds, experiences have different sensibilities, and as social beings we understand and respect this. The internet of course throws a wrench in all of this because it's hard to enforce moderation on a local basis as we do in the real world. But that does not mean that the way we have been living forever goes out the window.

I'm not saying we should do away with free speech, rather just that we have to work through things carefully and slowly. My hope is that after a little bit of debate, a liberal attitude prevails in Pakistan. But to respond with how folks are responding in this thread, of just putting gasoline on the fire, that's not really how progress is made, it is how we further elevate and agitate an already volatile happening -- we should probably not do that.

recuter5• 3 years ago

I think we can all agree that artistic depictions of Mohammad, even if they fall squarely under free speech, are something that are of poor taste because they trigger the sensibilities of a large chunk of people that abide to certain customs and norms.

Nope. But nice try.

particularly because we know know the speed at which viral false and illegitimate claims travel and the slower speed at which reasoned responses to those speech travel.

"A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes" is not a new observation. This has been abused since antiquity to oppress.

Great attitude to have for the Politburo I'm sure. Cardinal Richelieu. Jihadis of all sorts. The Spanish Inquisition (least you get offended I am picking on Jihadis) - No thanks.

eldaisfish2• 3 years ago

Bans on ideas and art rarely work. This is about as effective as claiming territory based on maps that governments force on others - India with Kashmir and Argentina with the Falkland Islands are two prominent examples.

The US does not have absolute free speech. No nation does and it is wrong to continue to claim that. What the US has is far fewer restrictions on speech relative to the rest of the world.

_Algernon_4• 3 years ago

It's not supposed to be nuanced. Nuanced takes on free speech are politically motivated, that is, people who have everything to gain by limiting speech making the decisions.

I'd rather have absolute free speech than self-interested dotards limiting my speech.

"Poor taste" is subjective. Drawing Mohammad should be legal, even if people don't have to like it. Terrorism in response is despicable no matter what speech occurred beforehand.

E2A: https://www.theonion.com/no-one-murdered-because-of-this-ima... (NSFW)

belval• 3 years ago

I think we can all agree that artistic depictions of Mohammad [...] are something that are of poor taste because they trigger the sensibilities

I disagree, because the slippery slope is VERY slippery here. Eating meat triggers the sensibility of some vegans, so does hunting, something isn't "in poor taste" just because it triggers.

meindnoch2• 3 years ago

I think we can all agree

No.

roncesvalles2• 3 years ago

An encyclopedia only journals what already exists in the world. There already exist many cultural illustrations of Muhammad and that's the only reason why Wikipedia also discusses them. This is a case of shooting the messenger.

Hizonner2• 3 years ago

I think we can all agree that artistic depictions of Mohammad, even if they fall squarely under free speech, are something that are of poor taste because they trigger the sensibilities of a large chunk of people that abide to certain customs and norms.

Nope. Fuck their customs and norms. Out here in the non-psychotic world, we also have "customs and norms". Those include not cutting facts out of our accounts of history, and not telling other people what they can say in general.

By the way, those exact same "customs and norms" also say that, although they can keep me from drawing some guy because it's offensive to them, I can't criticize a book that's full of literal, direct exhortations to kill a shit-ton of people, including me personally-- exhortations that have been and still are being acted upon throughout the book's history-- because questioning that book is also offensive to them. In addition to glorifying violence, that book also goes on for page after page denigrating other religions, by the way.

When you're prepared to systematically shun (at least) all Abrahamic scriptures and everybody who spreads them, along with all the other "false and illegitimate claims", and along with anything else that conflicts with anybody's "customs and norms", then you'll be in a self-consistent position. You'll still be wrong, but you'll at least be consistent. Ready to go there?

By the way, trying frame your position as something that every reasonable person obviously must already accept is a really pitiful rhetorical tactic.

dec0dedab0de• 3 years ago

Even if the slippery slope is a logical fallacy, it's important to remember where the staircase of censorship leads.

throwayyy479087• 3 years ago

What about the last decade would lead you to believe the slippery slope is a fallacy? It's less a slope than a cliff.

meesles3• 3 years ago

People love to reference the logical fallacy[1] as though there have been no instances where momentum builds from a series of decisions and cascades in a massive shift. But then again, thinkers like these are happy to comfortably think about the past while many suffer, instead of applying realism towards the future.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slippery_slope

yreg• 3 years ago

Wikipedia doesn't comply with government censorship and interestingly it is apparently so important that the national governments very often cave in.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_of_Wikipedia

Some countries used to block specific articles, but that's not possible anymore thanks to HTTPS. Local editors in such places are at risk of prosecution though.

meindnoch2• 3 years ago

Oh no! Anyway...

kunley• 3 years ago

According to the believers views, Allah intercepts this traffic by himself :D

type0• 3 years ago

Other big most visited web-pages need to degrade their connection in to Pakistan in solidarity with Wikipedia, if they care even one bit about free and open Web, otherwise it will never stop and more and more countries will use these methods to get their demands through.

robofanatic2• 3 years ago

PTA is committed to ensuring a safe online experience for all Pakistani citizens according to local laws.

seriously what could go wrong in that country if the content is not blocked?

ac2023• 3 years ago

I remember being unable to access Wikipedia when I was in Turkey

temp-amp• 3 years ago

I don't know why anyone is surprised. Internet is censored in one form or other by almost all countries. And if censorship is hurting business, companies comply to the demands.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Internet_censorship_b...

As for Wikipedia I know it's not a business, but the above logic of countries controlling access of content applies here. It's not the first time or first country censoring Wikipedia.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_of_Wikipedia

I think we need to understand the main cause behind all this. One thing we need to understand more which is not the cause but symptom the right & left wing populism across world.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right-wing_populism

eruci• 3 years ago

This ongoing stupidity reminds me of this poem:

  What if

  What if an AI
  writes a blasphemy?
  and the faithful already
  are asking for its beheading?

  I also thought of something else
  to write, but I'd rather not
  for I also have a head
  one can chop.

https://random-poem.com/What

rocknor2• 3 years ago

The creation of Pakistan is one of the biggest mistakes in modern history. The only country created on the basis of religion, thanks to the nonsensical Two Nation Theory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two-nation_theory. It was created so Muslims can be safe in their own country, but ironically Muslims in India enjoy a way better life and future prospects. As an Indian I wish the country gets rid of its weird Muslim superiority complex and adopts secular values so peace between our nations becomes a real possiblity.

hulitu7• 3 years ago

The creation of Pakistan is one of the biggest mistakes in modern history.

The UK would like to politely dissagree.

amriksohata• 3 years ago

Hindus are constantly persecuted in Pakistan under so called blasphemy laws

ryzvonusef• 3 years ago

Fully banned now: https://wikimediafoundation.org/news/2023/02/03/wikimedia-fo...

in unrelated news, Deutsche Welle also banned

Pakistani gov degrades Wikipedia connections due to blasphemy

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