KARACHI: In all likelihood, YouTube will remain inaccessible in Pakistan for the foreseeable future. Islamabad’s negotiations with Google — the Internet giant that owns YouTube — may prove fruitless unless Pakistan ensures legal support to the regulation of digital content, it was learned.
The Pakistan Telecommunication Authority has been in talks with Google for more than three months now, but has so far failed to convince the Internet titan to remove the offensive Innocence of Muslims video from its popular video-sharing website.
As per the company’s policy, Google will not block the said video in Pakistan because it does not have a localised version of the website the only factor that could have pushed Google to entertain the government’s request.
With the government unable to achieve a breakthrough, Internet service providers (ISPs) key stakeholders affected by the ban on YouTube have started lobbying to push Google to register the website in Pakistan so that they can autonomously block all links reported as offensive to Pakistani sentimentalities, say industry sources.
ISPs representatives pushed this agenda in a recent meeting of stakeholders in the issue, which was also attended by Google’s representative in Pakistan and government officials.
However, such efforts may be in vain, as Google holds several reservations regarding the country’s regulatory environment, sources said.
In the absence of intermediary liability protection — a form of legal protection for platforms like YouTube from unlawful exploitation by third parties (such as users) — sources say that Google may not localise YouTube after all.
Similar laws exist in India and even Bangladesh, sources point out. However, the regulatory environment in Pakistan is uncertain.
Internews
