Assignment No: 02

Banning Culture in Pakistan

Pakistan's digital path has attracted significant interest in recent years. Although the
government is making the right moves for digital development, relative to other countries
across the world, the rate is still high. There are already difficult places that Pakistan wants to
tackle both in policy formation and regional execution. Ownership of the strategy at this point is
much less obvious, so officials need more emphasis.

Internet censorship in Pakistan is government control of information sent and received using
the Internet in Pakistan. Internet filtering in Pakistan is controlled by the Pakistan
Telecommunications Authority (PTA) and the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) under the
oversight of the Army, the Pakistan Supreme Court and the Ministry of Information Technology
(Mo IT). While most filtering is selective in Pakistan — such as the occasional blocking of a big
website like BlogSpot or YouTube, The PTA tends to block pages that host material that it finds
blasphemous, anti-Islamic or that endanger internal security. Civil society web activity that
started to defend free speech in the country continues to grow as people utilize social media
for disseminating knowledge and organizing.

YouTube is nowadays a widely successful social networking site. It's perfect for individual use -
and companies can still use it. The videos you post should surface not just on the YouTube but
in many other web pages (such as, Google).There are many Advantages and disadvantages of
thus app Like it is easy to use, it is a source of earning for many people, in present situation
Covid-19 it help many students, but it has also a disadvantages, but if we look at the today’s
world developed economies are almost digital, and PM Imran khan also support this digital
Pakistan Mission. But recently some activities and rumors are against that thing.

The news that the state's leading court is discussing a ban on YouTube has upset Pakistanis
specifically the developer community on the global video sharing site. The decision comes after
Pakistan Telecommunications Authority (PTA) imposed a temporary ban on PlayerUnknown's
Battlegrounds (PUBG) in early July following a series of game-linked suicides and many
complaints tht this game is ADDICTIVE and WASTE OF TIME. Pakistan also banned the
Singapore-based Bigo live streaming service after PUBG over "immoral, pornographic, and lewd
content" and sent a "last alert" to TikTok, a Beijing-based ByteDance-owned video-sharing
service.

The announcement of YouTube banning fuelled a lively discussion on social media as hundreds
of Pakistanis are affiliated with the online site that provides thousands of work opportunities.
Citizens pointed to the proposed ban as a challenge to Pakistan's digital economy, since
YouTube is the "read and receive" website. In the last twenty years, Pakistan's digital
environment has always come under limitations. Tech analysts consider the three-year ban on
YouTube, lifted in 2016, on inappropriate material a "catastrophic time" that has slowed tech
development in the world.

The threat of previous bans is the explanation why Netflix, Amazon, PayPal and Tesla won't be
coming to Pakistan anytime in the near future" "After PUBG, it was Bigo, then TikTok and
YouTube too. Where will the social control and prohibition end? "On the one side, the
government is supporting Digital Pakistan’s image and implementing digital payment, so how is
the danger of bans going to work? Thousands of Pakistani news, movies, music, food, and travel
outlets raise money from the network while millions of people use it to inform and entertain.
So banning a YouTube is not a good step. Tania Aidrus, Head of the New Pakistan initiative of
the Prime Minister said such a step will prevent Pakistan from achieving its digital vision. "The
ban on a website such as YouTube is no answer. Three years after YouTube was banned in
Pakistan, our web maker economy that has only begun to thrive now, providing jobs for
thousands of citizens to function, "Our attention should be on ensuring better digital healing
through policy and debate. Brute power interventions such as prohibition would do little good
and will keep us from realizing the Emerging Pakistan dream. But what I have noticed like I
personally use YouTube for different purpose like for learning purpose as well as for
entertainment like different vloggers etc. so what I have noticed is that after this news they
have posting their tutorials and all their content in Instagram like they are working with a
brands on sponsored posts, like we all know that an influencer is essentially someone who has
built up an online presence by doing cool stuff online and posting them. The bloggers are
tastemakers, trendsetters and valued voices for their viewers whose views on such issues are
regarded. Some companies really can't deal with this, and they collaborate on partnered
promotions with influencers to can get the message out for their items. So there are many
other ways through which they are connect with their audience but the thing is that rather than
banning YouTube they can make different strategies like if they have an issue with the content
and any reason they can sort out that reason in a different way, like we have to improve the
check and balance options. So in my opinion ban on YouTube is totally wrong decision.

But when thinking about PUBG ban I think that is a good decision. Although many Big names of
E-sports in Pakistan has created their names in this industry but if we talk about the Youth in
general they have ruined their career. If you're a student playing mobile Pubg, it doesn't give
you any gain. Let me just clarify directly to you. You are growing to put at least 20–30 minutes
each playing. Consider the time wasted on 5–10 matches to watch. The sum of time is just too
much suffering for you as a worker. I see several pubg mobile / emulator streamers are
youngsters under the age of 25 that means they’re already losing their future assuming that's
their career choice. Gaming cannot be a job choice in India as we are on the world's 51 under
the income from game sales. Gambling earnings are not secure or there is no defense. A work
or company provides you with steady employment that meets all the essential needs.

PTA said that it took the decision because it received numerous complaints/letters from other
segments of society on the issue of banning PUBG. The authority stated that it came across
numerous "articles and research on the players' effect on mental and physical wellbeing in
online gaming, primarily PUBG. This game effect the player in several ways, like their interaction
with other family member is less, they spend more time on playing games rather than studying
and other activities, Violence, Addiction, bad mental health as well as physical health due to
less sleep. All these things are uncontrollable due to the addiction of this game. But if look
around the PUBG players are not happy with the decision obviously it was the source of
earning, many player live streamers have created their names in gaming industry, in many
articles it was mentioned that this games was kind of stress reliever which I don’t think is right.
If we talk about in general not that big names, so this decision is actually a good decision.
Because this PUBG is everywhere so many of my cousins were also playing this game and I have
seen that how their attitude changed, how they lost the balance in their study/Jobs and this
PUBG. so obviously this is the story of everyone if we look in our society, few of them maintain
the balance and few of them have a good career in this industry But for many of them this
game is just a waste of time nothing else.

“The rising gaming sensation from Pakistan Arslan ‘Ash’ Siddiqui, who last year was named the
best 'Tekken 7' player in the world even expressed his concerns. “Banning PUBG is only crushing
the ability of Pakistani gamers who have a tremendous potential to win and make the country
proud particularly during the pandemic when outdoor games have been limited and
tournaments cancelled" government can invest equally in sport.” banning So what I think that if
we have both sides like positive and negative and unfortunately the negative side scale is larger
than the positive ones so Banning games just isn't the answer. Such initiatives will offer strong
revenue if the government takes to encourage E-gaming. Via providing a standardized set of
rules and ethical standards for competitions, a policy E-gaming agency may supervise and
oversee E-gaming. In our culture only some educated people thinks that their children can
make their future in the gaming industry so parents may restrict the screen time for children in
order to minimize the harmful effects. Unfortunate events such as suicides cannot be taken as a
representation of culture as a whole because several causes may lead to these drastic acts. so
it’s not only about PUBG and YOUTUBE there are many other games which is banned by the
authority. Like Fortnite, Call of Duty, Medal of Honor, and Warfighter etc. All these games are
banned due to some reasons like few of them were against the national security, some were
aginst the society norms, culture, religion etc. so this is something which we can never accept
as a nation but the world is changed and we have to play the cards smartly like we can never
ban something which is present in Internet, for example PUBG after banning players are still
playing this game through VPN’s they are looking forward to different ways to play this game.
Not only in Pakistan but India they also ban different games due to different reasons, and they
 are on 18 No, on gaming revenue list, but they have banned such as ‘Over watch’ (trivialized
Hinduism’s highly revered goddesses) and ‘Pokemon Go’ (eggs are considered non-vegetarian
and blasphemous in places of worship). So banning is not a solution whether in Pakistan or any
other country. But yeah if something is really hitting our values in a bad way like tiktok so it
should be banned. And our authorities they must take wise decisions like they gave warning to
tiktok but banned the PUBG like HOW? What I have heard from different vloggers and through
different medium that TIKTOK is not an official app so they cannot earn money from there. And
obviously there is no future because everyone knows that it is not their original content but if
we talk about PUBG we have many live streamers who are earning from there and making their
career in E-gaming. And YouTube everyone on that platform has their original content and
obviously it is a source of earning for many people. So banning is totally fine if something is
against the national security, or against the cultural/religious values. But at the same time if we
ban something due to complaints from other side and due to any other reason, rather banning
that platform we must take different steps to solve such matters.

Other than Youtube, and different games if we search the web there are many sites which was
banned in Pakistan below is the table which I have found,

Blocke Start
Name Type of site Reason Resolution date
d by date

Blasphemous
Social networking 1 May
Flickr [54][57][58][59][60]
material (partial PTA 1 May 2010
service 2010
block)

Image sharing
Ibb/Imgbb No reason stated PTA Unknown Current
platform

Image sharing
Imgur No reason stated PTA Unknown 3 Jan 2020
platform
 Blocke Start
Name Type of site Reason Resolution date
d by date

17
24 September
Quora QA Not Identified PTA September
2019
2019

Pornography(Onl
y subreddits
Reddit social news containing PTA Unknown Current
pornographic
material banned)

Social networking Blasphemous 1 May

Twitter[51][52][53][54][55][56] PTA 1 May 2010
service material 2010

Multilingual, web- Blasphemous
1 May
Wikipedia [54][57][58][59][60]
based, free-content  material (partial PTA 1 May 2010
2010
encyclopedia block)

22 March
WordPress[50] Blog hosting National Security PTA 22 March 2015
2015

25
Video hosting Blasphemous
YouTube[51][52][53][54][55][56] PTA February 26 February 2008
service material
2008

Video hosting Blasphemous 1 May

YouTube[54][57][58][59][60] PTA 1 May 2010
service material 2010