Or so the owner of the fuming fingers of censorship thought as he clawed his way across the keyboard in a bid to censor the netsters of Pakistan.
However, his dreams were realized a second later as one over zealous click too many blocked most of the world from YouTube:
Pakistan’s attempts to block access to YouTube has been blamed for an almost global blackout of the video website for more than an hour on Sunday.
BBC News has learned that the outage was almost certainly connected to Pakistan Telecom and Asian internet service provider PCCW.
A leading net professional said the global outage was “probably a mistake”.
Pakistan ordered internet service providers to block the site because of content deemed offensive to Islam.
The BBC News website’s technology editor, Darren Waters, says that to block Pakistan’s citizens from accessing YouTube it is believed Pakistan Telecom “hijacked” the web server address of the popular video site.
Those details were then passed on to the country’s internet service providers so that anyone in Pakistan attempting to go to YouTube was instead re-directed to a different address.
But the details of the “hijack” were leaked out into the wider internet from PCCW and as a result YouTube was mistakenly blocked by internet service providers around the world.
Reports said Pakistan made the move because YouTube content included Danish cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad that have outraged many.
But one report said a trailer for a forthcoming film by Dutch lawmaker Geert Wilders, which portrays Islam in a negative light, was behind the ban.
“They [Pakistan's telecommunications authority] asked us to ban it immediately… and the order says the ban will continue until further notice,” said Wahaj-us-Siraj, convener of the Association of Pakistan Internet Service Providers.
The government decision has caused uproar in Pakistan, according to Wahaj-us-Siraj:
“Users are quite upset. They’re screaming at ISPs which can’t do anything.
“The government has valid reason for that, but they have to find a better way of doing it. If we continue blocking popular websites, people will stop using the internet.”
Other countries that have temporarily blocked access to YouTube include Turkey and Thailand.
[Via: BBC]
