Good evening, this isn’t the news.

As of 6pm this evening, all commercial television will stop in Britain. No Sky, Channel 4, ITV, Channel 5, NTL. BBC is now the only media which will be allowed to broadcast, and will be changing its schedules to a mainly news-based format. In addition, SMS texts will be shut down shortly, newspapers will be similarly limited, and for your safety, we are going to try and close down the internet as soon as possible.

Ridiculous idea? Not in Pakistan at the moment. Under the present regime, there is only state-run television now. The only other alternatives? Blogging and Youtube in the main. The internet is now the voice of the opposition there, as it has no route of speaking to people at all. See Chapati Mystery for one such example of what is going on there.

I’m just not qualified to comment on the political situation there at the moment, but the concept of virtually everything in terms of media being shut down, in any modern society, has amazed me this morning.


Posted

in

,

by

Tags: