Pakistan's Censors Target YouTube, Trigger Brief World-Wide Outage
Posted On Tuesday, February 26, 2008 at at 2/26/2008 05:46:00 AM by nullService on Google Inc.'s YouTube site was disrupted around the world for several hours Sunday after a botched effort by the Pakistan government to block access to a video clip critical of Islam.
The incident, which is still being investigated by YouTube, underscores the vulnerability of the global communications infrastructure. The unusual circumstances surrounding the breakdown also point to the growing role sites like YouTube have played in spreading politically charged content -- including in Pakistan, a nation that is already a tinderbox of political tensions.
The story began unfolding Friday when the Pakistan Telecommunications Authority, the nation's telecom regulator, ...