Pakistan Backs Down on Internet Censorship
posted Saturday Mar 24, 2012 by Scott Ertz
We reported last week about Pakistan's Request for Proposal (RFP) for an Internet filter for the country and McAfee's decision to not participate. Since McAfee wasn't the only company to have reservations about this idea and so far no company who is capable of accomplishing Pakistan's goal has had any interest in participating, Pakistan seems to have backed down.
Of course, we know that the Pakistani government isn't going to admin what they were doing was wrong and that they had made a mistake. Instead, they have spun the story and taken the coward's way out - blaming someone.
Who's going to take the fall for this one? Hit the break to find out.
National Assembly Member Bushra Gohar told The Express Tribune,
Secretary IT Farooq Ahmed Awan said to me that the URL project has been withdrawn due to the concern shown by various stakeholders.
Who is this other stakeholder, though? It turns out to be the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority. Gohar has also said that there will be an investigation into who posted the RFP without proper authorization. That certainly sounds to me like the Ministry of Information Technology (MoIT) is passing the buck onto the PTA, not that any of that matters.
This is a publicity stunt to try and now fix International scrutiny over the idea of censoring the Internet. A country that is interested in censoring the Internet will accomplish their goals despite that. China managed to censor iTunes results during the 2008 Summer Olympics, Pakistan will be able to censor porn; they just need to do it under the radar now.
