YouTube getting blocked in Kuwait?
Falantan a blogger that works at a local internet provider just posted that today they received an order from one of the department heads at the Ministry of Communication asking them to block Youtube.com. I hope this isn’t true since if they block YouTube they might as well just go all the way and block the Internet completely.
You can find more info on Falantan’s blog. [Link]
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Sep 21, 2008
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75 Comments, add your own...
1. klash47 | September 21st, 2008 at 5:55 pm
What?
You gotta be kidding me…..This…THIS IS MADNESS!!
2. moose | September 21st, 2008 at 6:10 pm
If they block youtube… a large angry mob with ak 47’s and snipers will form around the ministry
3. Rayboy | September 21st, 2008 at 6:20 pm
sad….
4. Kha | September 21st, 2008 at 6:21 pm
I guess we really are turning into KSA afterall. All what is missing is actually sanctioning a ministry of thought and having two minutes of hate.
Screw this shit!
5. sinful eye's | September 21st, 2008 at 6:23 pm
Now that is what u call corruption in MOC !!
The guy who’s in charge is waiting for us to bribe him !!
We didn’t get it when they blocked skybe ,,, they hit us big time now
6. moe80s | September 21st, 2008 at 6:34 pm
WTF This is unacceptable fuck this bullshit.. I am seriously considering on going to Dubai since i’m getting offers there.. YOUTUBE!!! damn weird decisions
7. moe80s | September 21st, 2008 at 6:37 pm
PS: A FRD FROM KUNA JUST INFORMED ME THAT THEY DID NOT RECEIVE ANYTHING CONCERNING THIS RUMOR
8. falantan | September 21st, 2008 at 6:43 pm
way to go blogger community! show them your pawah.
9. Farah | September 21st, 2008 at 6:46 pm
“WTF This is unacceptable fuck this bullshit.. I am seriously considering on going to Dubai since i’m getting offers there.. YOUTUBE!!! damn weird decisions”
It’s not like Dubai is any better. MySpace and so forth are blocked over there. While it’s shocking if it’s true, Dubai isn’t any better.
10. Mark | September 21st, 2008 at 6:47 pm
Moe80s: Kuna isn’t an ISP
11. ilsul6ana | September 21st, 2008 at 6:48 pm
blobk it from the ministry itself or ALL Q8?
12. Mark | September 21st, 2008 at 6:52 pm
Farah: Yeah Dubai is weird like that, prostitution is legal but flickr is blocked.
13. Teach | September 21st, 2008 at 6:55 pm
I think it is true- I tried to post a you tube video to my blog the other day and it wouldn’t download. I WAS able to watch the video but just had the problem when I posted it.
14. Adrenaline | September 21st, 2008 at 7:12 pm
Oh….quickly watch this before the block
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ymhq6afE4M&feature=rec-fresh
15. Fawaz | September 21st, 2008 at 7:22 pm
there was a Very offensive video about a man singing the quran..and thank god youtube removed it..I think these kind of videos are the reason of the ban
16. Hellraiser | September 21st, 2008 at 7:34 pm
Before blocking you tube why dont they block hotbird sex channel.
17. Marzouq | September 21st, 2008 at 7:36 pm
You can’t just up something and ban it.. and ISPs get these letters from MOC, I don’t think KUNA does.
It would be ridiculous to block anything really, its pointless that they do block these things instead of working on fixing and advancing the telephone network and infrastructure in Kuwait. What a waste of time. I feel sorry for the ISPs that are stuck dealing with them!
18. holla | September 21st, 2008 at 7:40 pm
I am suprised they haven’t been banning stuff earlier than this. This is after all Kuwaiti. I’ve said it before and will say it again, It’s only going to get WORSE.
19. falantan | September 21st, 2008 at 8:06 pm
moe80s:
it’s not like we the ISPs are gonna seriously entertain this particular very silly request. the admins like me and others in other ISPs are trying to get anyone in the press to blow this kind of weird mentality in their faces. if the press and/or public and/or MPs don’t say anything then it will become the status quo. as I said the MoC routinely threatens to stop our work and new installations if we don’t do as they ask.
20. Adrenaline | September 21st, 2008 at 8:09 pm
Yes it’s official starting tomorrow, i just got a confirmation from the GM of a local ISP.
21. Teach | September 21st, 2008 at 8:32 pm
They could always just ban life , in general………………….killjoys.
22. darkwolf80s | September 21st, 2008 at 8:33 pm
Guys Guys, is there anything that we can do to actually not let them block youtube? I use it on a daily baises to get news, tutorials, cooking shows and stuff why would they want to block it? We need to come up with a plan and submitting it to the MOC. We’ve said that they can block Skype, that’s fine but then blocking youtube is too much. He’ll i know a lot of college student in here use youtube as a supporting evidence for their paper or things that they want to use argue when it comes to political reason or whatever.
23. Armani Exchanger | September 21st, 2008 at 8:41 pm
No i don’t think so and it should be one of “They have said” news agancy
…i liked the fact you colored the NO sign in pink LOL!!!! very creative mark :P
24. sfsa78 | September 21st, 2008 at 9:12 pm
people… This is the plan:
When there was a video making fun of the king of Thailand, Thailand gov banned youtube, the people of Thailand informed CNN and it was all over the news all over the world. It was a huge embarresment for the so called reform of that govt.
Just send an ireport of an email to CNN.
25. cajie | September 21st, 2008 at 9:21 pm
Well, you know… There’s a lot of porn on youtube…..
26. Kha | September 21st, 2008 at 9:31 pm
Cajie, no there isn’t. Porn is prohibited on youtube. What is showing there are things that you can see through any international satellite network, and even the slightly racy things are always tagged as inappropriate, which requires you to specifically accept that the content might be offensive.
27. sfsa78 | September 21st, 2008 at 9:34 pm
cajie….
I think you’re getting confided with http://www.pornotube.com
28. cajie | September 21st, 2008 at 9:43 pm
@kha,
Getting access to adult content is pretty simple on youtube. Just create a fake id and you are all set. Just because soft porn is available through satellite networks does not mean it should be accessible to our children on the internet. Satellite channels can be simply deleted. Internet is a bit harder to do.
@sfsa78,
No. I was not getting confused with porntube or youporn. Here’s a link for your viewing pleasure.
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=2zM88o7UThI
29. Kha | September 21st, 2008 at 9:51 pm
Cajie, I just saw the video that you posted. This is not softcore porn. In fact, this is simply two girls kissing each other, and doing it badly. I don’t want to go into details of what softcore porn is, but I guess we both know it involves more than headshots of girls swapping saliva. Heck, even PG-13 movies show more skin than that.
What I am advising through is a coordination method with youtube itself so that the content, and only the content that is flagged as inappropriate, to be blocked. And for all honestly, I am not with that either.
30. cajie | September 21st, 2008 at 10:06 pm
@Kha,
That is exactly what happened last year with Flickr. Before countries started blocking flickr, there were no filters in place and accessing “inappropriate content” (if that sounds better than porn) was very easy.
Flickr realized that and started implementing filters/flags so that you could not be easily bombarded with such content.
Regardless of what your definition of porn/softporn is, there is lot of stuff there which is not appropriate. And for our tech-savvy children, accessing such content is child’s play (literally).
If there is a mechanism where such content can be blocked while still accessing the “normal” content, then fine. Otherwise, blocking youtube may not be such a bad idea in the end.
Google has worked with other governments to control content that it’s citizens are allowed to access (can you say China?). I don’t see why they cannot put some effort to tailor their content to suit Islamic countries.
31. Mark | September 21st, 2008 at 10:11 pm
if u want to see boobs search for pregnant chicks giving birth
32. moose | September 21st, 2008 at 10:14 pm
*****.org isn’t even blocked, yeah, you know what im talking about ^^
33. Kha | September 21st, 2008 at 10:15 pm
Cajie, I tried looking to see if there is a way to block the videos with the inappropriate content through the links provided to see if there is a pattern that can be blocked, but I guess I can’t find one now. But you are absolutely right though, Google has definitely worked with governments before, so I see no reason why it wouldn’t work with Kuwait if it wanted to.
Now I’m just patiently waiting to see if this turns out to be true or not though. I would be very disappointed if the site actually gets banned.
34. salah | September 21st, 2008 at 10:46 pm
i dont think so…
35. Bu Yousef | September 21st, 2008 at 10:58 pm
What’s next flickr?
They’re not making friends are they!!
36. khalid | September 21st, 2008 at 10:59 pm
omg why Im kuwaitian and thier gonna block youtube..
thats my favourite site..
i used to show people tutorials on runescape + runescape music video
I wouldnt look at the *** stuff…and I hear the song’s + their video’s
man I hope they wont block it and I hope they dont block all the internet..
=====================================================
allahum ajaal hada al – baladah amenan
walla tajalhoo fasedan
meaning in arabic islam
god please make this country safe
and dont make it from the *******
37. Adrenaline | September 22nd, 2008 at 12:46 am
It seams some of the ISPs will not obey, and have taken the decision not to block -at least for now-
38. TheSpY | September 22nd, 2008 at 1:05 am
I wish there is no internet in Kuwait. Internet makes me vomit Why ?Simply here in Kuwait all companies use the technology for self profit tell me witch company here in kuwait they are giving you the best price good service. GRrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrRrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr better to go down ( Baqala )
39. KTDP | September 22nd, 2008 at 1:30 am
meh …. shit happens ….. now vimeo will become more popular I suppose.
40. jaz | September 22nd, 2008 at 1:45 am
Chaos!! Madness!! :P
No but Seriously… looking at the bigger picture, they block youtube but dont monitor what major supermarkets are selling whether expired food or contains alcohol or bacon or something… or better still they install signs on motorways that are impossible to read and are a super distraction that tells you to focus on nothing other than the road and ur driving… fucking ludicrous. This country is turning into a circus.. i wonder if its a big conspiracy to force people out of the country :P
41. ilsul6ana | September 22nd, 2008 at 2:41 am
Its so weird for them to do this since in kuwait everything they prohibit ppl want more of…If i dont see it on youtube ill find a dozen of places to see that same video..just pointless! I wonder when our government will start looking at the big picture instead of these small “fixes” which arn’t doing much good and i bet are costing money 3ala il fathi !!!!
khaled : AMEEEEN!
42. Lucky_Boy | September 22nd, 2008 at 2:43 am
its on http://www.aljarida.com/aljarida/Article.aspx?id=78664
Looking at the guy’s department, makes me wonder who would take his order seriously…
43. Oz | September 22nd, 2008 at 3:20 am
do i smell new wtfq8.com material? this is just stupid.
44. sad | September 22nd, 2008 at 5:42 am
& so what if the officials of Kuwaitistan decide to close one more hole of the grill. They’ll only see it through despite a nagging few.
& As a reward for not rioting we get Nabeel Alawadi on Buses, Our new celebrity.
45. Limit | September 22nd, 2008 at 6:04 am
Hellraiser u r right!!
Before blocking you tube why don’t they block hotbird, Nilesat and all sex channels?????????????????
Youtube has a huge tube of knowledge and education.
This is sad sad sad.
46. SWOS | September 22nd, 2008 at 6:14 am
you tube is like 100000000% kids safe, they don’t host porn nor do they promote it, i learn photoshop techniques from it.. watch many educational videos.. check out the new movie trailers…etc.. nothing wrong with any of that…bleh
47. Kuwaiti | September 22nd, 2008 at 9:51 am
^ No it’s not safe.. call me crazy but i think its a GREAT idea.
48. cali87 | September 22nd, 2008 at 10:21 am
Look, it’s simple- the minister does not want the headache of being called and grilled by parliament because of some “offensive” videos that his ministry allowed access to – so he just banned the entire site.
49. Moey | September 22nd, 2008 at 10:23 am
check Kuwait Times.
50. Fabio | September 22nd, 2008 at 11:02 am
Guys this is not related to expiry dates, but to the scales they have all over Sultan, they r not correct, c there is a little lip on the bottom side of the scale that has a circle in the middle and a bubble, for the scale to b correct the bubble has 2 b in the center of the circle , and that is cheating, i informed them many times about this, but nothing was done, then i threatened to go to Ministry of Commerce, only then they took care of it, that was a year ago, but now they are not level again, so am 100% sure they r doing it on purpose.
51. Evil Knievel | September 22nd, 2008 at 12:20 pm
This is really stupid …. thats like closing your eyes so you do not see evil anymore … sad thing is that you don’t see good anymore either !!!
If you don’t like it … don’t read / see / eat / smell / touch / … it! But don’t ban it for the people that might want to get educated or want to hear a different opinion!
52. falantan | September 22nd, 2008 at 1:50 pm
The order has been canceled this morning by the minister himself. thank you Mark for the link and thank you all for the great response :)
53. falantan | September 22nd, 2008 at 1:51 pm
cali87: it wasn’t the minister at all. infact it was the minister who canceled the order as soon as he got wind of it.
54. Mr.Pedro | September 22nd, 2008 at 1:52 pm
Umm banning Youtube!!! and Dailymotion << with all its shit still up thats kinda weird ayy..??
55. Bader | September 22nd, 2008 at 2:04 pm
We should all get mad over youtube, we should have been mad a long time ago .. our rights are vanishing day by day without us knowing and we are getting ruled by jungle book and the MPs are the gorillaz
56. SanDMaN | September 22nd, 2008 at 3:04 pm
WTF, the minute a ban like that goes into force, is the minute I pack up and go home, it’s not enough that it’s an oppressive society, lack of a proper social scene, you have kids roving the streets, leering and jeering at girls and driving them off the streets (and this was also going on pre-satellite television, before the kuwaiti youth got exposed to all these “negative influences”), skype got banned so the ministry and telecom companies can overcharge us.
AND We pay the HIGHEST internet subscription fees in the WORLD!!!
And now YouTube may or may not be blocked.. Kuwait’s lost it.. I’ve lived here almost all my life, grew up here, I’ve lived here more than i have in my country of birth .. but this .. this could very well be the straw that breaks the camel’s back…. it’s like they’re taking steps to regress back to the dark ages.
Might as well ban me from the country.. I’m not religious.. and some of my friends consider my opinions on organized religion to be offensive. Why not just kick all non-muslims out, that way they can be sure no one will offend a muslim other than another muslim.
57. Iron This | September 22nd, 2008 at 3:42 pm
are you fucking kidding me…there’s nothing wrong about youtube
Fucking RISE UP AGAINST THIS OPRESSION!!!!
REBEL everyone rebel…
“Resolution the only solution, the armed response of an entire nation!”
58. Lil Abdul | September 22nd, 2008 at 3:58 pm
Man the Kuwaiti Gov went nuts
59. sfsa78 | September 22nd, 2008 at 4:44 pm
sandman…
On the topic of organized religion, this quote will bring a smile to your face:
“when one person suffers from a delusion, it’s called insanity. When Many people suffer from a delusion, it’s called religion”.
60. SanDMaN | September 22nd, 2008 at 4:50 pm
:)
61. Kha | September 22nd, 2008 at 5:08 pm
No man, it would be called a cult. Only a cult of those would call it a religion.
62. Kha | September 22nd, 2008 at 5:10 pm
or in other words, only a few cults would use your quote.
63. sfsa78 | September 22nd, 2008 at 6:23 pm
And another one just to pt icing on the cake:
“Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by the rulers as useful.”
64. Kha | September 22nd, 2008 at 6:46 pm
Typical answer of your type.
65. sfsa78 | September 22nd, 2008 at 7:08 pm
Kha.
you’re interested in questions and answers? :
“Philosophy is questions that may never be answered,
Religion is answers that may never be questioned.”
66. Kha | September 22nd, 2008 at 7:35 pm
Not from someone who’s method of making a statement is copying someone else’s. Thanks but no thanks, I’ve had enough already.
67. sfsa78 | September 22nd, 2008 at 8:17 pm
You’ve had enough? you dont want to know what is true? Want to shut your eyes?
“The way to see by faith is to shut the eye of reason”
Benjamin Franklin.
“Faith means not wanting to know what is true”
Friedrich Nietzsche.
“The process of non-thinking called faith”.
Richard Dawkins.
68. dantesinferno | September 22nd, 2008 at 8:35 pm
Richard Jeni has probably my favorite quote:
“You’re basically killing each other to see who’s got the better imaginary friend.”
69. Kha | September 22nd, 2008 at 9:28 pm
WTF are you? 15? LOL
Habibi, the truth is not me nor you can prove whether God exists. Deal with it. You can argue your whole life about the “facts” of it, but so can I. In the end, you either have faith or not. It is called a leap of faith for a reason. Trying to quote Nietzsche and the likes doesn’t change the fact that til now you have not said a word that came out of your own mind, nor changes the fact that you feel so different that the only way for you to feel special is to insult the whole population. If you think you can be more civilized than the rest of us, then start by finding your own character first, because I sure as hell won’t be listening to a tape recorder whose job is to repeat what others have said.
70. sfsa78 | September 22nd, 2008 at 9:54 pm
insult to whole population.. lol
having an opinion is an insult, or is quoting great historical minds that is an insult? i’m confused?
“The world holds two classes of men – intelligent men without religion, and religious men without intelligence.” – Abu’l?Ala al Ma’arri
“Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day; teach a man to fish and he will eat for a lifetime; give a man religion and he will die praying for a fish.”
“I do not fear death. I had been dead for billions and billions of years before I was born, and had not suffered the slightest inconvenience from it.” – Mark Twain
“He that will not reason is a bigot; he that cannot reason is a fool; he that dares not reason is a slave.” – William Drummond
“Religion does three things quite effectively: Divides people, Controls people, Deludes people.” – Carlespie Mary Alice McKinney
Kha..
Your behaviour is quite typical of a fundamental religious person of any religion, which shares one distinct similarity, and that is that no religious fundamentalist can not stand nor respect another opinion other than his/her own.
Therefore i will leave you with these quote :
“Man has always required an explanation for all of those things in the world he did not understand. If an explanation was not available, he created one.”- Jim Crawford
“The finality of death is the coldest truth one must face. Religion makes the perfect distraction.”
I have observed that the world has suffered far less from ignorance than from pretensions to knowledge. It is not skeptics or explorers but fanatics and ideologues who menace decency and progress. No agnostic ever burned anyone at the stake or tortured a pagan, a heretic, or an unbeliever. – Daniel Boorstin
71. Kha | September 22nd, 2008 at 10:06 pm
The opinions you are talking about are your own and yours only, and you pushing them through sly quotes against religion is definitely an insult to not only me, but a whole group of the population, and anyone who has faith in any religion.
Religious Fundamentalist? No respect for anyone else’s opinion? ha, right. There is something called moderation, and most people are certainly capable of that. You obviously need to have your world in black and white for it to make sense to you, since you think you can either be a religious fundamentalist, or just the opposite. Wake up and smell the grey.
72. sfsa78 | September 22nd, 2008 at 10:47 pm
oh the thoughts bigotry and extremism that your words evoke, whilst you try to hide behind words of moderation that you use to shut people up who have their own opinion. :) oh the hypocracy.
“with or without religion, you would have good people doing good things, and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion.” Steven Weinberg
“A man’s ethical behaviour should be based effectually onstmpathy, education, and social ties; no religious basis is necessary. Man indeed be in a poor way of he had to be restrained by fear of punishment and hope of reward after death.” Albert Einstein.
73. Mark | September 23rd, 2008 at 12:17 am
Next one who mentions anything to do with religion will get banned
74. Bader | September 23rd, 2008 at 1:12 pm
religion
75. falantan | September 23rd, 2008 at 2:03 pm
did Bader get banned? if not, how about…
“anything to do with religion”
*waits to be banned*
on a more serious note, thanks Mark for your link and awesome support :)
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