[Pakistan] PTCL blocks 104 websites offering vulgar material

["Irfan Khan" <khania2@super.net.pk>]

The News, 23 February 2003


PTCL blocks 104 websites offering vulgar material

By Imran Ayub

KARACHI: The Pakistan Telecommunications Company Limited (PTCL) has 
banned 104 websites, which offer pornographic material following 
instructions from federal minister for information technology but 
experts term it an eyewash arguing that hundreds of thousands of such 
sites are still within the net browsers access.

"The PTCL has banned 104 porno websites and fed their IP addresses 
into the company's channel through which it receives data and forward 
it to Internet service providers (ISPs)," a top official in the PTCL 
told The News on Friday.

He said the company took the step after discussing the matter with 
the ISPs and other quarters concerned but said "it is not yet decided 
when and how many more such websites would be banned in future. We 
know it is a meagre number of sites we have banned but (still it is) 
an initiative."

The federal minister for IT and telecommunications ordered last month 
to block the websites showing vulgar and indecent material. But since 
then, the ministry officials and ISPs have been expressing 
conflicting opinions about the productiveness of such an order. They 
say the order should be followed to uphold and protect social values 
but it could slow down the web browsing speed.

ISPs warn the order would do severe harm to their business by slowing 
down the Internet browsing speed which the say is already not so up 
to the mark. "There is no doubt Internet provides browsers and 
particularly teenagers an easy access to the whole world and the 
worst to the vulgarity through porno sites but the fact is that 
blockade of such sites, would severely damage Internet speed," V A 
Abidi, General Secretary Internet Service Providers Association of 
Pakistan (ISPAK) said.

He said the PTCL will have to feed millions of such sites' IP 
addresses into its channel to execute the order.

source: http://www.jang.com.pk/thenews/feb2003-daily/23-02-
2003/main/main11.htm