Regarding the Wikipedia ban, the Pakistan Telecommunications Authority (PTA) says that Wikipedia did not follow the 48-hour ultimatum given, thus it had to be banned. According to the BBC report, the Wikimedia Foundation, which also runs Wikipedia, said that banning Wikipedia means the Pakistani people will now be deprived of the greatest repository of knowledge. According to the report, blasphemy is considered a highly sensitive and inflammatory matter in Pakistan. Even before this, the country has also banned platforms like Tinder, Facebook, and YouTube.
Malahat Obaid, a spokesman for the Pakistan Telecommunications Authority, said Wikipedia did not respond to his repeated correspondence. Calling for removal of profanity-related content. They removed some things but they didn’t remove all the content. Obaid further said that Pakistan’s Wikipedia ban will remain in effect until all controversial content is removed from the platform. However, when asked about the related material, it was not revealed.
On the other hand, according to the report, the Wikimedia Foundation says that if the ban continues like this, it will block access to information related to Pakistan, its history and culture for everyone. That means no one will ever be able to see Pakistan-related information on Wikipedia again. In early 2010, Pakistan banned YouTube due to similar content. Apart from this, Facebook was also blocked in the country in the same year due to running a campaign, in which there was an accusation of blasphemy. Even the dating apps Tinder and Grindr were blocked in Pakistan due to similar content.