Daily Times

Internet censorship in Pakistan is not new, from over two decennium people of Pakistan are agonized with retrogressive settlements by government organizations in the field of digital development.

Undoubtedly, Pakistan being the IT nimble in Asia jumped through a lot of hoops in order compete with digital pyramids, the ascent of e-sports and competitive gaming is becoming popular than ever generating livelihood for youngsters, but sad to say our decisions makers left no stone unturned to demoralize the spirit of gaming community and dismay their effort they’ve made in all these years in building digital impression. The demographics of the government’s past suspensions are a clear example that our previous actions only resulted in nothing but decrease in digital advancement.

On July 1, the Pakistan Telecommunications Authority (PTA) temporarily suspended famous mobile game PUBG with an intention to improve mental and physical health of children, but was this ban necessary during this lockdown? Can the government ensure the ‘Stay Home, Stay Safe’ formula after such a decision? Let’s dig in further.

On July 1, the Pakistan Telecommunications Authority (PTA) temporarily suspended famous mobile game PUBG with an intention to improve mental and physical health of children, but was this ban necessary during this lockdown? Can the government ensure the ‘Stay Home, Stay Safe’ formula after such a decision? Let’s dig in further

In May 2010, the PTA imposed a ban on multiple websites, including YouTube, for sharing “blasphemous” content, later the ban was lifted in 2016 after six years when YouTube officially launched its local version for Pakistan, but the problem of objectionable material remained unresolved till today.

In 2019, the PTA blocked 900,000 URLs for sharing pornographic and anti-state content later the same year, Pakistan ranked the top porn searching nation in the world. We still never bothered to find and cure its root cause but only kept going with the flow.

On June 10, the PTA continued the process of registration of Virtual Private Networks before June 30, 2020, to promote legal ICT services/business in Pakistan and safety of telecom users and for terminating illegal traffic which causes loss to the national exchequer. But on July 1, 2020, no such action was made against unregistered VPN users bypassing all suspended activities.

It’s dire important for government to take on board that disconnecting Pakistanis from digital platforms is not a viable solution, especially during this lockdown time, especially for a country like Pakistan where people have invested their time, money and energy in E-Sports i.e. in Live Streaming, Competitive Gameplays, Online Competitions and a lot more, we need to perceive this once for all that this suspensions cannot eradicate this dogma of uninvited social issues rather it will leave an adverse effect on our youth who In an endeavor to ensure successful future.

The writer is a social media activist and security researcher settled in Lahore, Pakistan