Fail wail

For control-freak states,the Internet is like a particularly nasty smell. You can close all the doors and burn an agarbatti,but the stench will creep through a crack victoriously. You could stop breathing,of course. Cutting off the Internet totally is about as reasonable a solution. So most states that try to control the Internet Thailand,China,even India have had limited aims,which theyve achieved to greater or lesser degree. But Pakistan is always prepared to be a little different. Thus,when the Lahore high court declared that the social networking website Facebook should be blocked because of a page that violated Pakistans blasphemy law,the Pakistan Telecommunications Authority the schoolmarmish PTA then went on a bit of a rampage,also restricting access to Wikipedia,YouTube,Twitter and possibly even Flickr and Google. Basically,all the things that make online life worth living.

Of course,this wont go unquestioned. It is easy to deride Pakistans civil society as cut off from reality,but no middle class anywhere in the world will let an assault on Facebook go unquestioned. And,wonderfully,the first response was online jokes. Heres one: everywhere else,Facebook hosts virtual protests over real issues; in Pakistan,it sets off real protests on virtual issues. Another ones a question: Whats the difference between Facebook and the Lashkar-e-Toiba? Answer: Facebook is banned in Pakistan. Not a problem,Facebook. You can always reappear under another name.

Of course,it isnt all that straightforward. Lawyer and columnist Ahmad Rafay Alam wrote: We are a country entirely devoid of a sense of irony. Just before the PTA got around to enforcing the ban,someone I know updated her Facebook profile to inform people how pleased she was that Facebook had been banned. But perhaps the experience of being cut off from the world for a bit will shake people like Alams friend into questioning the application of backward-looking blasphemy laws to forward-looking media.