It is well over one year now that Youtube.com is officially blocked in Pakistan. But are people of Pakistan really unable to access the website? The answer is no, the site is very much accessible. Its not only accessible through few alternate methods in Pakistan, its just being accessed by every eight out of ten people using different methods to get around the ban.
People are using the proxy websites or in some cases some free VPN softwares are being used to bypass the blockade of youtube. Plus its an established fact that government have not been able to block any secure links yet, yes I am talking about the links over SSL or put it like this, the links which use https protocoal in browser bar instead of http. With few simple changes in configuration of internet connection people are able to change dns servers to some free foreign servise for this purpose, after that if you put the secure link in the browser, youtube is accessable. Then again with few changes in youtube account settings people are able to run few videos as well on SSL or in other words secure link which is unblockable. Google, the owner of youtube website, have a goal to convert every link there exists to SSL so soon everything including the video playback would be over secure link and government will have no way to block those videos and anyone would be able to access those videos without any proxy.
My point is simple, Pakistani government should not try to block the website on their own end, they must actively communicate with google to have a Pakistani domain of website and then they will be able to get few certain objectionable videos blocked effectively and rest of website would be available to people. When people use proxies or other methods to get around the ban, what happens is that along with all the good content they are willing to watch the objectionable content also keeps poping over. Also sooner or later government will have to resort to contacting Google for video blockade, becasue as soon as google converts its video playback as well on Secure Link (SSL) it will be impossible for our government to block anyone of vidoes on youtube. Isn’t it good the government contacts google soon and gets the good contact available to people and gets the objectionable/blashphamous content blocked the proper way.
My political association is not with Pakistan Muslim League Nawaz (PML-N) but as soon as they took charge I was hoping that things would get better and along with other issues Pakistan is facing, the cyber space issues will also be resolved but government have not been able to handle stuff well till now. Its never too late actually, Pakistan is already accessing the site, government should officially end this ban and should resort to more reliable methods to block the blashphamous material on website.
Unfortunate fact is that every once in a while either Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) or Federal Minister for IT and Telco Anusha Rehman give a statement claiming that they have either been able to block the objectionable links on website or they are in talks with Google and soon website will be accessable soon. But soon people realise that this was just a publicity stunt to remain in the news. But its time for them to do the right thing instead of making these statements, people of Pakistan no more can be fooled and they are watching you closely to compare what you say and what you exactly do.
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