Pakistan Lifts YouTube Ban For 3 Minutes, Finds More Blasphemy 275
On Saturday, Pakistan briefly lifted the months-old ban on YouTube, spurred by the widely distributed U.S.-made video presented as a trailer for a film titled "Innocence of Muslims" and decried in many places around the world as blasphemous toward Islam. "After months of criticism of the ban, the government decided to allow Pakistanis to have access to YouTube again, saying steps had been taken to ensure that offensive content would not be visible. But those efforts apparently failed, and the authorities quickly backtracked," writes the New York Times. "Quickly" is right: access to YouTube was apparently open for just three minutes, which seems about right; it shouldn't take longer than that to discover things on the site to which adherents of any particular religion might take umbrage. What's surprising is that this took lifting the censorship on a wide scale, rather than just taking a smaller peek through tunneling software.
Re:Who cares? (Score:4, Informative)
If you're a US Citizen, "we" is the correct term, like it or not. The US Citizens elect the US government.
Re:Who cares? (Score:5, Informative)
But if we did that it would cut off the world largest market for goat sex pornography: http://www.google.com/trends/explore#q=goat%20sex&cmpt=geo [google.com]
Re:Blasphemy in whose term ? (Score:5, Informative)
An expression we DO ban here in the U.S. is child pornography; the form doesn't matter. It can be on youtube, anime, photos, videotron, drawings, etc. This is a better analogy to Pakistan's ban on blasphemy.
I'm tempted to mod you Troll, but then you might not figure out exactly where your logic is (horrifyingly) wrong, so I'll explain instead: Child pornography is banned because it causes harm. THERE IS NO LAW AGAINST DRAWINGS OR ANIME DEPICTING CHILD PORNOGRAPHY in the U.S., because no one is harmed -- or potentially harmed -- in drawings or anime.
Sex with children is bad, mkay?
Re:Blasphemy in whose term ? (Score:5, Informative)
Wrong. Cartoon child pornography *is* illegal in the US, but it is under a law passed with such routine that it didn't even get a catchy acronym for the media.
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18 USC 1466A extract:
Any person who, in a circumstance described in subsection (d), knowingly produces, distributes, receives, or possesses with intent to distribute, a visual depiction of any kind, including a drawing, cartoon, sculpture, or painting, that—
(1)
(A) depicts a minor engaging in sexually explicit conduct; and
(B) is obscene; or
(2)
(A) depicts an image that is, or appears to be, of a minor engaging in graphic bestiality, sadistic or masochistic abuse, or sexual intercourse, including genital-genital, oral-genital, anal-genital, or oral-anal, whether between persons of the same or opposite sex; and
(B) lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value;
or attempts or conspires to do so, shall be subject to the penalties provided in section 2252A (b)(1), including the penalties provided for cases involving a prior conviction.
(b) Additional Offenses.— Any person who, in a circumstance described in subsection (d), knowingly possesses a visual depiction of any kind, including a drawing, cartoon, sculpture, or painting, that—
(1)
(A) depicts a minor engaging in sexually explicit conduct; and
(B) is obscene; or
(2)
(A) depicts an image that is, or appears to be, of a minor engaging in graphic bestiality, sadistic or masochistic abuse, or sexual intercourse, including genital-genital, oral-genital, anal-genital, or oral-anal, whether between persons of the same or opposite sex; and
(B) lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value;
or attempts or conspires to do so, shall be subject to the penalties provided in section 2252A (b)(2), including the penalties provided for cases involving a prior conviction.
(c) Nonrequired Element of Offense.— It is not a required element of any offense under this section that the minor depicted actually exist.
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And yes, this is enforced at times: http://classic.tcj.com/tag/title-18-u-s-c-1466a/ [tcj.com]