Since last Sunday phone operators in Pakistan are forced to censor the "obscene" terms from text messages sent by the inhabitants of the country, reports the AFP news network.
According to information received by the network news in the last 14 days, the authorities sent the country's telecommunications operators with an accurate list of 1695 terms that should be banned from SMS in seven days.
Among the terms "prohibited" are both in Urdu - the local language - and the English.
"There are more than 1,600 terms in the list, including indecent language, profanity and slang, which must now be filtered," said a representative of telephone companies that chose not to identify. "Filtering is not good for the system and will damage the quality of the service, and can cause some clients can not send your SMS because of a poor choice of terms," he adds.
On Monday the Pakistani telecom companies sent a statement condemning the decision. "We are witnessing a relentless wave of moral policing in communications, imposed by the government," said Shahzad Ahmed, coordinator of the protests against censorship.
"By developing an extremely detailed list of terms indecent and force operators to filter them, the government not only makes a mockery of itself, but also ridicules the whole country," he concludes.
According to information received by the network news in the last 14 days, the authorities sent the country's telecommunications operators with an accurate list of 1695 terms that should be banned from SMS in seven days.
Among the terms "prohibited" are both in Urdu - the local language - and the English.
"There are more than 1,600 terms in the list, including indecent language, profanity and slang, which must now be filtered," said a representative of telephone companies that chose not to identify. "Filtering is not good for the system and will damage the quality of the service, and can cause some clients can not send your SMS because of a poor choice of terms," he adds.
On Monday the Pakistani telecom companies sent a statement condemning the decision. "We are witnessing a relentless wave of moral policing in communications, imposed by the government," said Shahzad Ahmed, coordinator of the protests against censorship.
"By developing an extremely detailed list of terms indecent and force operators to filter them, the government not only makes a mockery of itself, but also ridicules the whole country," he concludes.
