BlogSpot blocked in Pakistan?

Abe Olandres Editor-in-chief November 21, 2006 · 1 min read

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Was browsing some blogs hosted by Google’s Blogger via BlogSpot.com. It looks like everything on it is blocked here in Pakistan:

ERROR

The requested URL could not be retrieved

While trying to retrieve the URL: http://www.blogspot.com/

The following error was encountered:

* Connection to xx.xx.xxx.xxx Failed

The system returned:

(60) Operation timed out

The remote host or network may be down. Please try the request again.

Your cache administrator is [email protected].
Generated Tue, 21 Nov 2006 09:33:29 GMT by BSD-Cache.hri.net.pk (squid/2.5.STABLE13)

I did a quick search in Google and found out this has been going on for some time now.

However, the Blogger.com main site is available and you can login to your account and publish a blog entry, only that nobody can view your blog if it’s hosted on BlogSpot.

There are some workarounds here but whenever I go to DNSStuff.com, I get this error: WARNING: You are using a web proxy that is currently being abused by malware.

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Abe Olandres

Editor-in-chief

Abe is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of YugaTech with over 20 years of experience in the technology industry. He is one of the pioneers of blogging in the country and is considered by many as the Father of Tech Blogging in the Philippines.

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24 Comments

web hosting · 13 years ago

We are a gaggle of volunteers and opening a brand new scheme in our community. Your web site provided us with useful information to work on. You have done a formidable job and our entire neighborhood will probably be thankful to you.

Shahzad Khan · 20 years ago

Yes I agree cencorship is bad idea on the internet, but everyone can find a way around it, say like you can still access thoe blogspot blog through this:

pkblogs.com/bloggerusername

it’s as simple as that !

peace
-me

Abe Olandres Editor-in-chief · 20 years ago

Yes, I think I heard the news about this months ago and though I’ve heard from people that China and KSA blocks a lot of websites (Flickr, BlogSpot, etc) I didn’t it would be done here too.

If that incident was the cause, then I think its just a band-aid solution.

gen · 20 years ago

that’s too bad,considering that i use blogspot. buti ka pa you get your own server and all…

GUrbi · 20 years ago

Not only in Pakistan but also in China, Iran and Syria. However, people in the said countries can view blogs from blogspot using the blog’s feed or they can also view blogs using pkblogs.com…

Sajid Iqbal · 20 years ago

Yeah! Blogspot blocked long ago. Remember that blasphemous cartoon controversy? by that time Govt of Pakistan blocked the blogspot as It was hosting some blogs that reprinted those cartoons. Amazingly most Pakistanis were using Blogpot for blogging, now they are shifting to alternatives like WordPress.

Nick Nichols · 20 years ago

Yeah. This has been pretty extensively covered by GlobalVoices earlier in the year, but I haven’t kept up with the thread. I guess the ban is still in place.

Here’s the wikipedia article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Censorship_in_Pakistan