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(CNN) -- Pakistan has become the latest country to block access to the video-sharing Web site YouTube on the grounds that one or more videos on the site offend Islam, authorities said Monday.

The Pakistani government is also asking YouTube to remove "objectionable content," said Nabiha Mehmood, a spokeswoman for the Pakistani Telecommunications Authority.

If YouTube removes the video or videos that concern Pakistan, she said, the government may once again let its people post and view video clips.

It is unclear what the video or videos in question depict.

Wahal us Siraj, one of the founders of the Internet Service Providers Association of Pakistan, told CNN Monday that the telecommunications authority sent him a link to a YouTube video that concerned Pakistani authorities. A click on that link Monday yielded a message saying the "video has been removed due to terms of use violation."

YouTube has exploded in popularity by letting ordinary people post their own videos online and view videos that others post. Yet that growth also has spawned efforts around the world to regulate the site.

Authorities in Brazil, China, Iran, Morocco, Myanmar (also known as Burma), Syria and Thailand have blocked access to YouTube in the last few years, according to Reporters Without Borders, a press advocacy organization.

The countries acted after concluding that YouTube videos were subversive (China), immoral (Iran), embarrassing to well-known figures (Brazil) or critical of a country's king (Thailand), the group said.

Governments also have sought to regulate user-supplied Internet content to stymie allegations that they abuse human rights, the group said.

A few months ago, YouTube took down videos posted by an award-winning Egyptian human rights advocate that showed what he described as police abuse. YouTube subsequently restored his account and let him continue posting videos.

In Pakistan, a committee made up of representatives from various government ministries ordered the Pakistani Telecommunications Authority to block YouTube access, Mehmood said.

The authority sent a letter to Internet service providers (ISPs) on Friday evening ordering them to prevent people in Pakistan from visiting YouTube, she said.

According to a BBC report, a Pakistani ISP tried to implement the decision not by blocking traffic to the Web site, but by re-directing the address.

While the re-direction of YouTube traffic was only intended for Pakistan, the change was accidentally propagated around the world, the BBC said.

This meant that worldwide traffic to the site was affected on Sunday, with Internet users around the globe unable to connect to the site for almost two hours.
The decision received mixed reactions.

"Some people are quite upset and screaming. They say they have been using YouTube regularly," said Siraj, who helped found an association representing about 50 Internet service providers in Pakistan, including Micronet Broadband, where he is the chief executive officer. "There are others who say that YouTube is full of videos ... that are damaging to the character of children."

A YouTube spokeswoman did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Roughly 3 to 5 million of Pakistan's 165 million people have Internet access, the Internet Service Providers Association of Pakistan says.

Reporters Without Borders condemned the government's decision

The group said in a statement on its Web site that Pakistani authorities cited an increase in the proportion of "non-Islamic objectionable material" on YouTube.

"It should not be up to the (Pakistan Telecommunications Authority) to order this kind of blocking," the group's statement. "Such a decision should be taken by the courts, not by a body that is under the government's control."

According to a BBC report, a Pakistani ISP tried to implement the decision not by blocking traffic to the Web site, but by re-directing the address.

While the re-direction of YouTube traffic was only intended for Pakistan, the change was accidentally propagated around the world, the BBC said.

This meant that worldwide traffic to the site was affected on Sunday, with Internet users around the globe unable to connect to the site for almost two hours.

Zaelath wrote:

According to a BBC report, a Pakistani ISP tried to implement the decision not by blocking traffic to the Web site, but by re-directing the address.

While the re-direction of YouTube traffic was only intended for Pakistan, the change was accidentally propagated around the world, the BBC said.

This meant that worldwide traffic to the site was affected on Sunday, with Internet users around the globe unable to connect to the site for almost two hours.

That's what you get for using cheap Paki DNS ;p

Ashur wrote:So who/what was the authoritative group that fucked this up? Surely any one ISP can't just deny everyone access to an address without so much as a "by your leave" (otherwise lol). Was something inadvertently allowed to be published to the .com top level DNS?

Animalor wrote:These enterprising pakistanis did the world a favor by making the world YouTube-free for a couple of hours as far as I'm concerned...

You think they can do the same to MySpace forever?

Truant wrote:Maybe they could do the same to YOU forever!

Xouqoa wrote:

Truant wrote:Maybe they could do the same to YOU forever!

Maybe they could do the same to YOUR MOM forever!