Pakistan wipes egg off face. Did Google blink?
After breaking the internet at the weekend, the Pakistan Telecommunications Authority (PTA) has told internet service providers (ISPs) to restore access to YouTube. Google, the owner of the video-sharing website has confirmed that service had been restored in the country.
The BBC’s Rory Cellan-Jones has been keeping score and notes that the PTA is saying that it unblocked YouTube because the offending clip - a trailer for Geert Wilders’ film - has been removed.
Google says it never comments on individual YouTube videos. All a spokesman would tell me is this: “When we receive complaints about videos we review them against our terms of use - which include things like pornography or gratuitous violence or hate speech - and where videos break those rules we remove them.”
He wasn’t happy at my suggestion that YouTube had blinked. But I’m putting that down as another goal for the government - making it Government 2, Internet 2.
Wednesday 27 Feb 2008 | Paul | Pakistan
