Twitter announced that it has unblocked tweets and Twitter accounts that the Pakistani government previously requested to have blocked before.
Twitter had blocked the tweets and Twitter accounts about a month ago. However, the company has backtracked its decision and has restored access to the content in question.
"We have reexamined the requests and, in the absence of additional clarifying information from Pakistani authorities, have determined that restoration of the previously withheld content is warranted. The content is now available again in Pakistan," said Twitter in a statement issued to the Chilling Effects Clearinghouse, a blog that the network is working with to track online censorship.
The blocked tweets were considered as "blasphemous" and "unethical," and the request to ban them was sent by Abdul Batin of the Pakistan Telecommunications Authority. The blocked accounts included those that had a focus on anti-Islamic movements, showed desecrated pictures of the Prophet Mohammad and the Twitter account of Belle Knox, a pornographic film actress and a Duke University freshman.
This was the first instance wherein Twitter used the network's Country Withheld Content service, which blocks access to specific content within a nation while keeping it accessible to other parts of the world.
The tool "is worrisome for citizens in countries where no transparent and legal processes exist for access and content on the Internet," said Bolo Bhi, a Pakistani civil rights group.
Bolo Bhi requested that Twitter's process of receiving and deciding on requests made to them by governments should be open to the public, along with the criteria of a valid complaint.
Shahzad Ahmad, Pakistan country director of Bytes for All, said that the initial decision of Twitter to grant the Pakistani government's demands for censorship on blasphemous content could lead to banning just any kind of content that the government wishes to in violation of human rights.
"We believe that all Internet platforms with a global presence should develop their policies and principals to have human rights at the core," he said.
Pakistan has had its fair share of demands in terms of demanding for the blocking or removal of content, especially when religion is involved. YouTube is banned in Pakistan because the government claims that it has no feature to block the controversial Innocence of Muslims, which caused unrest in Pakistan and several other countries in the region a couple of years ago. Facebook also gave in to the requests of the Pakistani government to temporarily censor the profile pages of a rock band form the country.
