Pakistan’s year-long Youtube ban might finally be ending (but offensive videos will be blocked)

If you are a Pakistani Youtube fan, this has been a tough year. The Google service has been blocked in the country since last September, when Google refused to take down a short home-made “film” called “The Innocence of Muslims” that offended a lot of believers and sparked street protests across the Middle East. Now, ProPakistani is reporting that the ban may finally be drawing to a close, as it seems the Pakistan government now has URL filters that will allow it to selectively block objectionable content (mostly content that is offensive to Muslims, apparently) without continuing the blanket ban of the entire service.

Reportedly, the technology has been provided by Pakistan Telecommunication Company at no charge for the first year. Apparently, it has already been tested, blocking a list of 4,000 objectionable URLs. There are still some regulatory hoops to be jumped through before the system can go live, so don’t fire up your browsers just yet, but the news brings hope that the year-long ban could finally be drawing to a close.

(via ProPakistani)