First they came for Facebook...

First they came for Facebook and now the Pakistani Government has banned You Tube and 450 other sites including Wikipedia for being "sacrilegious" to the nation's Muslim majority.

When you give the government the power to censor, they will use it.

You may agree with the government on a particular ban, but one day you won't, and by then it will be too late. Think Human Rights Commissions for something a little closer to home.


Related: This doesn't look good.

State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said in Washington that the United States respects Pakistani efforts to protect the public from offensive images and speech but that Pakistan must also respect freedom of expression online.

Scott Rubin, a spokesman for YouTube, said that the site is working with Pakistani telecommunication officials to resolve the issue and that "we hope we restore service soon." He added: "This is up to Pakistan telecom authority."

I hope they don't go down the Comedy Central route because appeasement never works.

BTW: For the moral relativism crowd out there. Banning over 450 internet sites from over 146 million people is not the same as enforcing rules and the employment contract for 1 single person, no matter how much you want it to be.