Islamabad, 20th March 2020
Media Matters for Democracy (MMFD) gets the websites of popular online magazines ‘State’ and ‘Gizmodo’ unblocked in Pakistan. It was noticed in December that the website Slate.com was inaccessible in Pakistan. The telecom regulator Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) is empowered by Section 37 of the Prevention of Electronic Crimes Act to block access to any web content using vague and overbroad qualifiers. Access to Gizmodo was blocked in February 2020.
MMFD, as the first step of invoking legal measures against unfair blocking of online content, filed a Right to Information request with PTA demanding to know the exact nature of these blocks. The PTA, however, responded that the websites were blocked ‘due to technical faults’ and are accessible now.
Read the full story on Digital Rights Monitor: http://digitalrightsmonitor.pk/pta-responds-to-rti-requests-unblocks-slate-and-gizmodo-websites