May 20 (Bloomberg) -- Pakistan, home to the world’s second- largest Muslim population, blocked Google Inc.’s YouTube service and more than 450 Web links as the government widened a crackdown on Internet material it deems blasphemous.
The sites and links were blocked because of the increasing level of sacrilegious and derogatory material, the Islamabad- based Pakistan Telecommunication Authority said in a statement today. The regulator, which shut access to Facebook Inc.’s website yesterday, may block other links with blasphemous content, Khurram Mehran, a spokesman, said.
Pakistan began its censorship campaign after a Facebook user set up a page inviting others to draw caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad, an act considered blasphemous by Muslims.
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