Cheer up, adult Webmasters. You could be in Pakistan, where authorities say they've blocked 1,800 Websites in a porn crackdown. Not that it's easy, said the Associated Press.
"Curbing porn sites is as difficult as blocking the wind," Farhan Parpia, a Web engineer with the state-owned telecommunications company, told the AP. "You block one, and dozens more come up like mushrooms." But under pressure from religious parties, Pakistan's information technology minister, Owais Leghari, ordered Pakistan Telecommunications Co. Ltd. to filter porn sites, beginning in late March.
Company spokesman Ather Javed Sufi told the AP 1,800 porn sites have been blocked so far. The leader of the six-member religious party political alliance known as Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (United Action Forum) applauded the action.
"This is one good move on the part of the present government," said Hafiz Muhammad Taqi. "The young generation should be saved from sinking neck-deep in the filth of pornography and vulgarity." But what of the younger generation who say they'll just take the blocking as a new challenge? "How can the government deprive us from having fun at least through Websites? There are tens of thousands of such sites," Ghayur Ahmed, a 14-year-old Net café patron, told the AP.
