Pakistan Lifts YouTube Ban-- For A Few Hours

The government's new filter, designed to block blasphemous websites, didn't work, so the authorities reimposed the blackout. Pakistan's rescinding of a four-month ban on YouTube lasted just hours after an Internet filter designed to block blasphemous sites proved useless. The government, whose plan for a National Firewall plan went up in smoke (do you see what I... oh, never mind) last year, had been under fire for the blanket ban, as it had been affecting the use of Android phones in the country. Interior Minister Rehman Malik tweeted the news that his country's ISPs were about to be told to lift the ban, because Pakistan had acquired software that would "totally block pornographic and blasphemous material." On the lifting of the Internet sanctions, however, the contentious material was still visible. And so the shutters came down again. This last ban was imposed after the furor o...