An update on this story. "Pakistan lifts curbs on YouTube," from the Associated Press:
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - Pakistan's telecoms regulator said Tuesday it has lifted restrictions on the YouTube Web site that led to the knocking out of access to the popular video-sharing site in many other countries for a few hours over the weekend.
The Pakistan Telecommunication Authority ordered 70 domestic Internet service providers to restore access to the site after removal of what government officials had deemed a "blasphemous" video clip.
Pakistan ordered YouTube blocked on Friday over a clip featuring a Dutch lawmaker who has said he plans to release a movie portraying Islam as fascist and prone to inciting violence. As a result, most of the world's Internet users lost access to YouTube for several hours on Sunday.
An Internet expert said Sunday's problems came after a Pakistani telecommunications company complied with the block by directing requests for YouTube videos to a "black hole." So instead of serving up videos of skateboarding dogs, it sent the traffic into oblivion.
The problem was that the company also accidentally identified itself to Internet computers as the world's fastest route to YouTube, which is owned by Google Inc. That led requests from across the Internet to the black hole.
Accidentally? Really? The world may never know.
UPDATE: The AP article above says in the second paragraph that YouTube removed something the Pakistanis didn't like. However, this Fitna promo can still be found here.
Perhaps we could steer all Islamic-fundamentalist traffic bollox into a virtual black hole as well? Calcutta perhaps?
But al-Qaeda videoes are still allowed. What gives al-You-Tube?
Why does Pakistan have internet access at all? Isn't the internet un-islamic? Full of music, and images of living beings, and dogs, and pigs, and alcohol, and funm, and uncovered meat, and all manner of other things which will only offend their sensibilities.
Why don't they just switch it off? Better yet, why don't we just switch them off?
Please could you justify your headline "Dhimmitube caves".
I see nothing in the quoted article to substantiate the claim. In fact, it appears that it was the Pakistan government that "caved".
Pakistan can control most of the world's youtube access? That really is a flaw. That needs to be stopped.
mww--
The article says at the end of the second paragraph that YouTube took down the video. I went and searched for it, and didn't have any luck myself.
More examples of why we call YouTube "DhimmiTube" can be found by clicking on "this story" at the top of the posting.
Thanks, MarisolJW. I missed that.
Marisol-
In English and Dutch there are still many youtube offerings from and about Wilders and his Koran film.
Maybe they are only blocked into Pakistan?
One of the funniest is a Dutch comedic bit about how "slecht" (bad) of the Book the Koran is.
It then criticizes the typeface ("What is that 'Times'... how lousy can you get!"), the poor binding ("Tasteless'), and the presentation of the bilingual text, the cheap paper used, and mocks the Dutch approximation, on the cover, of the word "Qor'aan".
Very droll for anyone who understands Dutch, listed under "De Koran Film".
Profitsbeard-- thanks. I had been doing some more digging at YouTube, and have updated the posting.
I agree with Borg - something seems wrong with this article. Most of the world's Youtube traffic goes through Pakistan? Since when were they such an IT powerhouse?
"You can't stop the signal, Mal"
-from the movie "Serenity", based on the sci-fi series "Firefly".
Why can one of the world's dictatorships block a site all over the internet? Lucy, you got some 'plaining to do.
WOW - MAYBE THEY SHOULD ASK ROBERTS ADVICE !!
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/7264903.stm
Turkey in radical revision of Islamic texts
By Robert Piggott
Religious affairs correspondent, BBC News
The scholars say they are returning to the original values of Islam
Turkey is preparing to publish a document that represents a revolutionary reinterpretation of Islam - and a controversial and radical modernisation of the religion.
The country's powerful Department of Religious Affairs has commissioned a team of theologians at Ankara University to carry out a fundamental revision of the Hadith, the second most sacred text in Islam after the Koran.
The Hadith is a collection of thousands of sayings reputed to come from the Prophet Muhammad.
As such, it is the principal guide for Muslims in interpreting the Koran and the source of the vast majority of Islamic law, or Sharia.
This is kind of akin to the Christian Reformation. Not exactly the same, but... it's changing the theological foundations of [the] religion
Fadi Hakura,
Turkey expert, Chatham House
But the Turkish state has come to see the Hadith as having an often negative influence on a society it is in a hurry to modernise, and believes it responsible for obscuring the original values of Islam.
It says that a significant number of the sayings were never uttered by Muhammad, and even some that were need now to be reinterpreted.
'Reformation'
Commentators say the very theology of Islam is being reinterpreted in order to effect a radical renewal of the religion.
Its supporters say the spirit of logic and reason inherent in Islam at its foundation 1,400 years ago are being rediscovered. Some believe it could represent the beginning of a reformation in the religion.
Some messages ban women from travelling without their husband's permission... But this isn't a religious ban. It came about because it simply wasn't safe for a woman to travel alone
Prof Mehmet Gormez,
Hadith expert,
Department of Religious Affairs
Turkish officials have been reticent about the revision of the Hadith until now, aware of the controversy it is likely to cause among traditionalist Muslims, but they have spoken to the BBC about the project, and their ambitious aims for it.
The forensic examination of the Hadiths has taken place in Ankara University's School of Theology.
An adviser to the project, Felix Koerner, says some of the sayings - also known individually as "hadiths" - can be shown to have been invented hundreds of years after the Prophet Muhammad died, to serve the purposes of contemporary society.
"Unfortunately you can even justify through alleged hadiths, the Muslim - or pseudo-Muslim - practice of female genital mutilation," he says.
"You can find messages which say 'that is what the Prophet ordered us to do'. But you can show historically how they came into being, as influences from other cultures, that were then projected onto Islamic tradition."
The argument is that Islamic tradition has been gradually hijacked by various - often conservative - cultures, seeking to use the religion for various forms of social control.
Leaders of the Hadith project say successive generations have embellished the text, attributing their political aims to the Prophet Muhammad himself.
Revolutionary
Turkey is intent on sweeping away that "cultural baggage" and returning to a form of Islam it claims accords with its original values and those of the Prophet.
Women are re-examining their portrayal in the scriptures
But this is where the revolutionary nature of the work becomes apparent. Even some sayings accepted as being genuinely spoken by Muhammad have been altered and reinterpreted.
Prof Mehmet Gormez, a senior official in the Department of Religious Affairs and an expert on the Hadith, gives a telling example.
"There are some messages that ban women from travelling for three days or more without their husband's permission and they are genuine.
"But this isn't a religious ban. It came about because in the Prophet's time it simply wasn't safe for a woman to travel alone like that. But as time has passed, people have made permanent what was only supposed to be a temporary ban for safety reasons."
The project justifies such bold interference in the 1,400-year-old content of the Hadith by rigorous academic research.
Prof Gormez points out that in another speech, the Prophet said "he longed for the day when a woman might travel long distances alone".
So, he argues, it is clear what the Prophet's goal was.
Original spirit
Yet, until now, the ban has remained in the text, and helps to restrict the free movement of some Muslim women to this day.
There's also violence against women within families, including sexual harassment... This does not exist in Islam... we have to explain that to them
Hulya Koc, a "vaize"
As part of its aggressive programme of renewal, Turkey has given theological training to 450 women, and appointed them as senior imams called "vaizes".
They have been given the task of explaining the original spirit of Islam to remote communities in Turkey's vast interior.
One of the women, Hulya Koc, looked out over a sea of headscarves at a town meeting in central Turkey and told the women of the equality, justice and human rights guaranteed by an accurate interpretation of the Koran - one guided and confirmed by the revised Hadith.
She says that, at the moment, Islam is being widely used to justify the violent suppression of women.
"There are honour killings," she explains.
"We hear that some women are being killed when they marry the wrong person or run away with someone they love.
"There's also violence against women within families, including sexual harassment by uncles and others. This does not exist in Islam... we have to explain that to them."
'New Islam'
According to Fadi Hakura, an expert on Turkey from Chatham House in London, Turkey is doing nothing less than recreating Islam - changing it from a religion whose rules must be obeyed, to one designed to serve the needs of people in a modern secular democracy.
He says that to achieve it, the state is fashioning a new Islam.
"This is kind of akin to the Christian Reformation," he says.
"Not exactly the same, but if you think, it's changing the theological foundations of [the] religion. "
Fadi Hakura believes that until now secularist Turkey has been intent on creating a new politics for Islam.
Now, he says, "they are trying to fashion a new Islam."
Significantly, the "Ankara School" of theologians working on the new Hadith have been using Western critical techniques and philosophy.
They have also taken an even bolder step - rejecting a long-established rule of Muslim scholars that later (and often more conservative) texts override earlier ones.
"You have to see them as a whole," says Fadi Hakura.
"You can't say, for example, that the verses of violence override the verses of peace. This is used a lot in the Middle East, this kind of ideology.
"I cannot impress enough how fundamental [this change] is."
Or is it simply that they do not have the expertise or equipment to be able to control the WWW. That is the power we have unleashed. I doubt that any government could control the web this selectively without effecting other aspects: Email, business communications, military applications etc.
Churchill1939 quoted the BBC:
That's precious. They'll tell us kufirs about their plans to invent a new peaceful Islam, but don't dare tell their co-religionists, because they know what the penalty for apostasy is.
Seems like the lunatics in Pakistan would be happy for the YouTube blasphemy to be up and running for the maniacal young jihadists, as it would give them another excuse to riot, rage, scream, and burn effigies and flags. It would give the islamic clergy more ammo to use against the wicked West and its crusade against satanic islam. It would provide more proof of the relentless attack against islam by evil Christians and Jews.
Despite the numerous advantages of allowing the devout muslim citizens of Pakistan to see the video and increase their rage levels to category 10, more than adequate for violent jihad, the censors chose to block it. That reinforces my belief that the islamic establishment has a morbid fear that islam will be exposed for the farce it is to muslims as well as to non-muslims. That is why they cannot allow public criticism of islam or permit any discourse or debate that might plant doubts in the minds of muslims. It wouldn't take much and they know it. The internet is public enemy #1 in Pakistan as even the hardcore madrassa graduates could be vulnerable to the mysteries and fascinations of the civilized world. It is best that they never discover them.
The worldwide YouTube outage actually wasn't Pakistan's doing. The main ISP in Pakistan sent data to their upstream provider to block YouTube and reroute traffic. The goofs at the upstream system didn't filter the routing requests properly and sent the instructions out everywhere, and finally had to shut off Pakistan's access until the problem was fixed.
There are a number of sources that suggest the reasons for Pakistan blocking YouTube was because of videos being posted that show evidence of election-rigging, rather than for "blasphemous" material.
http://pakistaniat.com/2008/02/22/youtube-blocked-in-pakistan-why/