STAFF REPORT ISB: Minister of State for IT and Telecom Anusha Rehman has said that reopening of YouTube does not fall in our jurisdiction and there is a need to evolve an institutional mechanism to identify undesired content on the Internet.

“Pakistan will have to establish an independent institution with act of the Parliament in order to curb blasphemous and pornographic material on YouTube and other Internet services,” she said at the consultative workshop on IT Policy.

All the existing ministries including Ministry of Information Technology as well as regulators such as the PTA and PEMRA have taken stance that the content management on the Internet did not fall in their domain. So, all the stakeholders agreed to evolve a separate institutional mechanism to ensure content management on the Internet, the minister added.

She said that the government did not believe in censorship; however an institutional mechanism was required to identify objectionable material under content management as the draft telecom policy has raised the issue to get feedback from the quarters concerned.

“The inter-ministerial committee constituted by the prime minister on YouTube issue does not enjoy administrative powers,” she said and added that finally the responsibility of stopping content lied with the ISPs (Internet Service Providers), so the government inserted certain clauses into Cyber Crime Bill currently under consideration before the Cabinet.

By Web Team

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