On Wednesday, something weird happened: social media accounts of several Pakistani cricketers became visible to Indians. This happened after the Indian government decided to block these accounts along with those of other Pakistani social media personalities due to Pahalgam Attack and Operation Sindoor.
The accounts were online for a few hours before being blocked again. People online were complaining about the decision to unblock the accounts and using the hashtag #BanPakistanContent to ask the authorities to reinstate the ban.
Why were the accounts unblocked?
According to NDTV, it was a technical error. The reason for re-blocking these accounts wasn’t mentioned. Many Pakistani cricketers including Shoaib Akhtar and Shahid Afridi had their accounts visible for a few hours and there was a change in their view counts.
Before being blocked in India, Shahid Afridi and Akhtar’s YouTube channels had hundreds of thousands of views. Since the ban, their view counts have gone down drastically. Before the ban, they used to get hundreds of thousands of views but after the ban they struggle to get 10,000 to 20,000.
In May, the government asked all Over-the-Top (OTT) platforms, streaming services and digital intermediaries to stop showing web series, films, songs, podcasts and other content from Pakistan.
After several Pakistani accounts became visible, All Indian Cine Workers Association (AICWA) urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi to completely ban Pakistani social media content saying it disrespects those who died for the country.
It insults our martyred soldiers and emotionally hurts every Indian who lost someone in terror attacks by Pakistan.
Till now there is no official explanation for this.
