Saving the internet in Pakistan.

IN an effort to censor 'objectionable content', the Pakistan TelecommuAniAcaAAtion Authority (PTA) has initiated another onslaught on the fundamentals of the internet infrastructure in Pakistan by introducing a local centralised Domain Name System and attempting to block global DNS. If fully implemented, this will significantly slow down internet speed in Pakistan, increase the cost of internet services, undermine privacy and effectively stunt Pakistan's IT sector expansion and advancement in technology and associated services.

Under the paternalistic garb of protecting Pakistani citizens from 'objectionable content' on the internet, the PTA has gone too far and is set to fracture the fundamentals of how the internet was envisaged to function.

There are multiple ways of blocking content on the internet. Several have been employed previously by the PTA in Pakistan. In 2006, it blocked the entire blog-hosting website Blogspot among 12 websites for two months because a blog by some insignificant person somewhere in the world was deemed blasphemous. In 2008, the blocking of YouTube by the PTA made the channel inaccessible in several parts of the world for two hours. In 2010, several websites including Facebook, YouTube and Wikipedia were blocked at the Internet Service Provider level, whereby ISPs were sent lists of websites to be blocked.

In March 2012, the government requested tenders for a URL filtration system, and the Canadian company Netsweeper won the bid, despite efforts by Bolo Bhi to write to them explaining that bidding for such equipment would undermine human rights in Pakistan. The filtering system changed the blocking from ISP-level to centralised blocking at the national Internet Protocol level. This would also empower the PTA to block individual IPs, which is the method or protocol under which data is sent from one computer to another on the internet.

The PTA is set to fracture the fundamentals of how the internet was supposed to function.

While these websites were blocked in the name of blocking pornographic and blasphemous content, access to several political and news websites was also obstructed, especially those critical of state policies. Rolling Stone among others remained blocked for long, and many Indian news websites continue to be inaccessible here. In a move that the Islamabad High Court ruled against, the PTA even blocked the Awami Workers Party's website before the 2018 election without any explanation.

In 2018, it...