Puzzling over privacy

When I went for a walk on the beach with my cousin a couple of Sundays ago, I did not expect to find myself in a Facebook video shot and shared by someone with more than 2,500 friends. We were at Clifton Beach, the most publicly accessible and over-developed of Karachi’s shores. Plastic wrappers, soda [...]

While you were banned…

The Lahore High Court in Pakistan lifted the country’s ban on Facebook a couple of days ago. That’s not such a surprise, as all initial news stories had reported the ban would last until May 31. Several interesting things happened during the 13 days the ban was in place: Resourceful folks in Pakistan continued to [...]

Pakistan is the new China

Pakistan is now blocking proxy servers, specific Twitter accounts and news stories. What’s even more crazy-making is that there are angry mobs out there showing public support for this, and all the sane people are too scared to speak up. Heck, even Pervez Musharraf says it’s a great idea. Farieha Aziz, an assistant editor for [...]

Up next: a ban on your brain

“Hey everyone in Pakistan, are you really not on Facebook anymore?” I typed into my status update box yesterday. Silence. Ten minutes later, still nothing. I had a moment of blind panic when I realized they were really not there. There are some friends in Pakistan I count on seeing online every day, even if [...]