ISLAMABAD: A few days ago Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) banned the most popular blogger website WordPress.com in Pakistan. But despite of ban the following website is still accessible without any kind of hurdle in it.
In this regard Naveed Ahmed a blogger from Rawalpindi said that I visit WordPress.com time and time again and do not face any difficulty in opening pages or posting my stuff on website”.
WordPress is the most popular blogging system in use on the web at more than 60 million websites.
The ban was first reported in international media. International media organisations reported that after a permanent ban on YouTube, now the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority has banned the website due to security reasons.
Reports also criticised the government for putting an alleged ban on internet use in the country and stated that the government had also temporarily suspended other social media sites, including Facebook, Wikipedia, IMDb, Twitter, in the past.
But, the officials rejected the impression that the website was banned in the country for any duration of time.
It is easily accessible, said an official by opening page of wordpress.com in the capital.
Despite government denial, some users complained that they could not open WordPress on Saturday through Monday, but it was operational since Monday evening.
“Whenever I tried to open the page, never succeeded, I received the message that site is not accessible in Pakistan,” said Rubab Jehan, an internet user.
According to officials, the website was not blocked by government and the users who were unable to open the page might be due to some other reason.
However, the officials said that during last week up till 23 March, some Internet devices were blocked due to security reasons but they were restored by Monday evening.
The reports of ban have surfaced at a time when government has disbanded Inter-Ministerial Committee (IMC) for content management on Internet and granted these powers to regulator, Pakistan Telecommunication Authority.
According to Ministry of IT, the move was aimed to put in place an effective and sustainable web content management system.
What would be parameters under which PTA will ban some website has yet to be announced. Official spokesperson PTA did not respond on the issue despite repeated calls and SMS queries.
