PTA issues notices to Google and Wikipedia

The Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) has issued notices to Google and Wikipedia for removal of online controversial and blasphemous material from their platforms, reported 24NewsHD TV channel on Saturday.

The PTA said that the notices to Google and Wikipedia for blocking and removing the illegal online contents were issued under Rules 2020.

Keeping in view the serious nature of the matter, the PTA has established contact with Google and directed the global online search engine to immediately get rid of the illegal material.

According to a PTA spokesman, the step was taken after complaints received about uploading of an unauthentic version of the Holy Quran on the Google Play Store by the Ahmadi community and also regarding misleading search results about the “present Islamic caliph”.

پریس ریلیز : پاکستان ٹیلی کمیونیکیشن اتھارٹی(پی ٹی اے)نے گوگل اور وکی پیڈیا کو پلیٹ فارمز کے ذریعے گستاخانہ مواد پھیلانے کے معاملے پر نوٹس جاری کردیئے ہیں۔

— PTA (@PTAofficialpk) December 25, 2020

The global platforms asked to immediately remove the contents if they wanted to avoid legal action from the regulator.

Complaints have also been received regarding the presence of blasphemous caricatures of the Prophet of Islam (PBUH) and the misleading, bogus, wrong and deceitful information derived from articles published on Wikipedia which presented the leader of the Ahmadis, Mirza Masroor Ahmad, as a Muslim.

The PTA has also issued a notice to Wikipedia for removing the blasphemous contents to avoid any legal action from the Pakistani regulator.

If no or negative responses are received from the platforms, PTA will be forced to take legal action under the Prevention of Electronic Crimes Act 2016 (PECA) and Rules 2020.

The notices have been launched under the “Removal and Blocking of Unlawful Online Content (Procedure, Oversight and Safeguard) Rules 2020.” Under this rule, regulators are obliged to have any sacrilegious content removed by contacting the relevant platforms.