Should governments block websites?

Should governments block websites?

The video-sharing website YouTube says it was taken out of service on
Sunday after Pakistan's government ordered the site to be blocked
because it contained un-Islamic material. Should governments censor
internet sites?

The owner of YouTube, Google, says the nearly two-hour outage of the
website was caused by what it calls "erroneous internet protocols",
sourced in Pakistan.

The Pakistani authorities ordered the Islamic republic's internet service
providers to block the website because its content included Danish
cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad.

Pakistan Telecom Authority "hijacked" the web server address of YouTube
and the video web site was mistakenly blocked by internet service
providers around the world.

In what circumstances would you allow governments to block access to
the internet? Do you believe any censorship is an attack on freedom of
expression? What are the wider lessons from the action by the Pakistani
authorities?

Yeah They Did Block Youtube In Israel I Think. And They have also Blocked Wikipedia in Some Universities In U.S.

Google has been blocked in China.

In a democracy, no website should be blocked. It is part of freedom of speech and expression that is the core of democracy.

On the other hand it does not come as a surprise when authoritarian forms of government excercise such control.

Which is why there is a beautiful thing as proxy server.

Edited by return_to_hades - 27 February 2008 at 9:45pm

Some photosharing sites and even orkut, I think is banned here in UAE

ppl tell me there are ways to access them still...so whats the point??

Yh a knw init. Erm yh youtube was bloked here in d uk 4 a bit cuz pakistan bloked it but guess it bloked here 4 a bit 2. But yh all d websites shuldnt be bloked its up 2 us wat we wana go on or nt

show me the govt and i'll tell u whether they shld be blocking websites

Edited by chatbuster - 01 March 2008 at 6:26pm

..I like ur logical approach!

naheen yaar, it's reasonable. when some govts do it, one can just close one's eyes and know it's for all the wrong reasons. whereas with other govts, they would only do it for "janta ki bhilai" kinda reasons. of course