Twitter blocks ‘blasphemous’ tweets in Pakistan

Twitter blocks ‘blasphemous’ tweets in Pakistan

The online social-networking and microblogging site, Twitter, has honoured five requests brought forward by Abdul Batin, an official of Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA), to block ‘blasphemous content’ in Pakistan.

Batin had asked Twitter to block accounts, tweets or searches that he considered as blasphemous or unethical in the month of May.

Twitter honoured these five requests, meaning that this content can no longer be seen in Pakistan. The requests called for the blocking of drawings of Prophet Muhammad (PBUH), photographs of burning copies of the Holy Quran and messages from a handful of anti-Islam bloggers as well as the entire account of an American porn star who now attends Duke University.

The blocking of these tweets in Pakistan is in line with Twitter’s country-specific censorship policy uncovered in 2012. Twitter said it will post a censorship notice whenever a tweet is removed and will post the removal requests it receives from governments, companies and individuals at the website chillingeffects.org.