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Cannot lift Youtube ban without apex court permission: Pakistan minister

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IANS Islamabad

The Pakistan government cannot lift the ban on online video site YouTube on its own as the matter is sub judice, Minister of State for Parliamentary Affairs Sheikh Aftab Ahmed said Wednesday.

Addressing the National Assembly, the lower house of the Pakistani parliament, the minister said it was the Supreme Court of Pakistan that had ordered the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) to block offensive material on YouTube and all other websites, which led to a complete ban of the online video site, Geo News reported.

On Feb 6, Minister of State for Information Technology Anusha Rehman informed the Senate, the upper house of parliament, that PTA did not have the technology to block all objectionable content on YouTube and that no mechanism existed anywhere in the world to block 100 percent of objectionable content.

 

The minister said the matter was reviewed several times, but the situation effectively remained the same and technical experts were of the view that there was no technical solution available.

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First Published: Feb 11 2015 | 5:16 PM IST

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