Islamabad: Pakistan telecommunication authority (PTA) has been instructed by ministry of information technology to restart YouTube service in 48 hours. Spokesman of Ministry of Information Technology Saghir Anwar Wattoo and PTA officials confirmed issuance of the orders to remove ban on YouTube. The Pakistan Telecommunication Company limited (PTCL) welcomes YouTube by posting welcome note on its official Facebook page.
PTA officials said all arrangement for unblocking YouTube is completed. The Official insured that the blasphemous content had been blocked for the localized version. PTA Spokesman Khurram Mehran previously confirmed the launch of the localized version of YouTube in Pakistan which did not feature any of the controversial content.
[junkie-alert style=”white”] Ministry of Religious Affair along with PTA, IT Ministry and other agencies who were part of the committee to tackle this issue was informed the removal of blasphemy content by the collaboration with Google. [/junkie-alert]
PTA said in reply to the High Court petition of ban on YouTube that Google and PTA both have verified clearance of new version of the website; it does not contain any controversial content. In future if any copy appears in website, request of blocking offended material is provided on online web process.
YouTube is a video sharing website and it was the 3rd most visited website in 2012. In Pakistan YouTube was blocked on September 18, 2012, after the rejection from website of removing blasphemous content. Offensive content also caused protest all over Pakistan. Later, Ban was lifted in 2013 but only for few hours.