Last month Pakistan’s government briefly lifted its ban on YouTube, only to reinstate it just a few minutes later upon discovering that the controversial film “Innocence of Muslims” had not been removed. But now it looks like the country is set for a more permanent solution. As reported by Pakistani newspaper Dawn, the government will unblock access to YouTube once it has completed a filter to sift out offensive content. “We believe in access to free information,” Prime Minister Raja Pervez Ashra said. “The only reason not to unblock YouTube is the presence of blasphemous material on it.” The ban has been in place in Pakistan — as well as Egypt and Libya — since last September, though there’s no word on when the filter is expected to be complete.
Pakistan will lift ban on YouTube after building filter for ‘blasphemous material’
is an entertainment editor covering streaming, virtual worlds, and every single Pokémon video game. Andrew joined The Verge in 2012, writing over 4,000 stories.
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