{"id":8172,"date":"2024-08-19T08:37:22","date_gmt":"2024-08-19T08:37:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/pakistan-blames-users-for-slow-internet-as-firewall-rumours-grow\/"},"modified":"2024-08-19T08:37:22","modified_gmt":"2024-08-19T08:37:22","slug":"pakistan-blames-users-for-slow-internet-as-firewall-rumours-grow","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/pakistan-blames-users-for-slow-internet-as-firewall-rumours-grow\/","title":{"rendered":"Pakistan blames users for slow internet as firewall rumours grow"},"content":{"rendered":"


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Pakistan has for weeks been experiencing painfully slow internet – but who, or what, is to blame is a matter for debate.<\/p>\n

Activists say the state is building a China-style internet firewall as it looks to exert further control over the online space. <\/p>\n

Officials have disputed these claims and instead blamed the widespread use of secure connections or VPN<\/a> (virtual private networks) for the crawling speeds.<\/p>\n

Shutting down the internet to crush dissent is a familiar move in regulators’ playbooks in Pakistan and other parts of Asia. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Since the riots sparked by former prime minister Imran Khan last year, the government has blocked social media platforms and throttled connection speeds<\/a> as the battle for public support spilled over from the streets to the digital space.<\/p>\n

The micro-blogging platform X has been blocked since the February elections<\/a> due to “national security” concerns.<\/p>\n

Mr Khan’s party supporters are big users of X and he is the most popular Pakistani on the platformn, with nearly 21 million followers.<\/p>\n

But Minister of State for Information Technology Shaza Fatima said on Sunday that the government was not behind the recent slowdown.<\/p>\n

She said her team has been “working tirelessly” with internet service providers and telcos to resolve the issue. <\/p>\n

Ms Fatima said a “large population” had been using VPNs and “this strained the network, causing the internet to go slow”.<\/p>\n

She said reports that the state was behind the slow connections were “completely false”.<\/p>\n

However Ms Fatima said the government had been upgrading its systems to improve cyber security.<\/p>\n

“It is the right of the government to [take such measures] given the cyber security attacks that this country has to go through,” she said.<\/p>\n

Activists however accuse the minister of “dodging criticism like a usual politician”. <\/p>\n

Shahzad Ahmad, director of local digital watchdog Bytes for All, told the BBC his organisation has “ample tech evident” to prove the existence of a firewall. <\/p>\n

“It seems its purpose is to monitor online traffic… and limit dissemination [of information] in online spaces, particularly curbing political expression,” Mr Ahmad said.<\/p>\n

“Even if civil liberties don’t matter, this is now about people’s livelihood and the economy as well,” said Farieha Aziz, co-founder of Bolo Bhi, a local non-profit that advocates for free speech online.<\/p>\n

Business leaders and associations have warned that the slow connections could endanger Pakistan’s business potential. <\/p>\n

“The imposition of the firewall has triggered a perfect storm of challenges, with prolonged internet disconnections and erratic VPN performance threatening a complete meltdown of business operations,” said the Pakistan Software Houses Association. <\/p>\n

This could cost the IT sector up to $300 million, the association said, calling it a “direct, tangible and aggressive assault on the industry\u2019s viability”.<\/p>\n

“A mass exodus of IT companies is not just a possibility but an imminent reality if immediate and decisive action is not taken,” it said.<\/p>\n

Activists have filed a petition before the Islamabad High Court, calling for access to the internet to be declared a fundamental right under Pakistan’s constitution. <\/p>\n

Additional reporting by BBC Urdu <\/i><\/p>\n<\/div>\n


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Pakistan has for weeks been experiencing painfully slow internet – but who, or what, is to blame is a matter for debate. Activists say the state is building a China-style internet firewall as it looks to exert further control over the online space. Officials have disputed these claims and instead blamed the widespread use of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8173,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8172","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-asia"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8172","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8172"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8172\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8174,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8172\/revisions\/8174"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8173"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8172"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8172"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8172"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}