Pakistan

Overview

Pakistan’s Internet penetration rate stands at 10 percent. Broadband access is available in cities, but rural residents can typically only access the Internet through slow dial-up connections. The country has no 3G network, which stymies the growth of mobile Internet. The Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) controls ISPs and filters content that it deems blasphemous or threatening to national authority. Despite the popularity of social media, Pakistan’s government has blocked major sites including Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube because of content that is deemed anti-Islamic or a threat to national security.

Access

One in 10 Pakistanis uses the Internet, mostly from outside the home. Broadband access is low at 0.52 percent but is growing rapidly in big cities. Slow dial-up service in rural areas hinders people there from engaging in much online activity. Two-thirds of Pakistanis have mobile phones, but the lack of a 3G network limits mobile Internet growth. The prime minister approved a policy in late 2011 to develop a 3G network but indefinitely postponed a 3G licensing auction scheduled for March 2012. The Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) controls all ISPs, issues telecommunications licenses, and blocks content. The PTA reports to the Ministry of Information Technology and the prime minister appoints its leaders; as a result of this structure, many critics question the body’s independence.

Control

Pakistan censors content that it deems blasphemous or threatening to national security. It filters content at the country’s Internet exchange point and at the individual ISP level. The blogging platform Blogger was blocked for two months in 2006 after a site depicted cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad. A 2008 block of YouTube over a video that insulted Islam resulted in the site shutting down worldwide for two hours. In 2010, a Facebook page called, “Post Drawings of the Prophet Mohammad Day” prompted the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority to order blocks of Facebook and YouTube, as well as pages on Flickr, Wikipedia, Amazon, Bing, Google, Hotmail, MSN, and Yahoo that were deemed blasphemous. In 2012, it briefly blocked Twitter for a similar campaign. The government blocked YouTube in September 2012 and as of mid-2013 refused to reinstate access. In addition to anti-Islamic material, censored content includes information from political dissidents in Balochistan and Sindh provinces. The government has also switched off communication channels in Balochistan twice. The government of Punjab, the country’s most populous province, passed a measure in 2012 that requires cyber cafe owners to collect personal information from every user, effectively restricting anonymous web browsing.

Activity

Pakistan’s blogosphere includes many independent blogs, such as Pakistan Media Watch, that work to serve as media watchdogs and to provide alternative sources for information. The blogosphere also has several influential mainstream media blogs that publish material in Urdu and English. The Emergency Times blog became a lifeline in 2007 when a pro-democracy movement emerged in response to Pakistani leader Pervez Musharraf’s firing of the Supreme Court’s chief justice. Social networking has taken off in Pakistan, and Facebook is the country’s most visited site. Politicians increasingly use Twitter to communicate with the public, and digital rights organizations such as Bytes for All and Citizens for Democracy have used social media to galvanize campaigns around internet filtering and the country’s blasphemy laws.