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Instagram was banned in Pakistan for a short while on 29 August 2014.
For photographers, photojournalists and digital media marketers, whose bread and butter was Instagram, it appeared to be a nightmare. At first it appeared to be server error, but when Twitter users were confirmed by PTCL that the unbelievable really has happened, the online community burst into total fury.
While YouTube had a reason to be banned because of the controversial anti-Islamic film, the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority gave no reason why the Instagram ban was necessary.
Concerns over whether Facebook was going to be targeted next by the censorship police hit the social media community as they vexed their frustration online.
For some reason the PTA believes that banning the medium is the only way to stop a message from proliferating. What if some day you got to know that the television has been banned because of some controversial channels? What if some day you are told that the entire newspaper industry is banned because of one contentious article in a newspaper? Sounds ludicrous, doesn’t it?
Although Instagram was restored a few hours later, what really happened is still a mystery. Whatever was the case, the only question is; is Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest coming up next? Will this bombardment on social networks by the PTA ever stop?
