Pakistan's media regulator said Monday it blocked Wikipedia services in the country for hurting Muslim sentiment by not removing purportedly blasphemous content from the site. Critics denounced Islamabad's action, saying it was a blow to digital rights.
Under Pakistan's controversial blasphemy laws, anyone found guilty of insulting Islam or its figures can be sentenced to death, although the country has yet to carry out capital punishment for blasphemy.
She said Pakistani authorities are in talks with Wikipedia officials and the ban could be lifted if the platform completely removes anti-Islam content. "Pakistan's media regulator and other authorities should try to find some viable technical solution to such problems as blasphemous content is available everywhere," he said. "It is equal to a drop in the ocean of knowledge."
But the ban was later lifted after TikTok assured Pakistan it would remove immoral content and also block users who upload "unlawful content." The app was downloaded millions of times in Pakistan when the ban was imposed in 2020 and 2021.