South Asian countries such as Nepal, Sri Lanka and Pakistan will see a new YouTube homepage starting today, which will be in their local languages and domain. Through the new homepages, the most relevant videos can be brought to users with ease. Users will be able to access country specific content now due to the new homepages.YouTube is already available in Sinhalese, Urdu and Nepali languages.
“Starting today, if you’re in Nepal, Pakistan or Sri Lanka, you’ll see a new YouTube homepage that’s customized in your local language and domain. YouTube is already available in Nepali, Sinhalese and Urdu, and now having country-specific homepages means we can bring you the most relevant videos in a YouTube experience tailored for you,” read a post on Google Asia Pacific blog.
The post also divulged into details regarding how Pakistanis love YouTube’s music offerings, particularly the Coke Studio channel. According to the post, Coke Studio was immensely popular with Pakistani viewers, who watched its videos in huge numbers.
“Pakistanis love YouTube’s diverse music offerings. One of the country’s most popular YouTube channels is Coke Studio, a series of live studio-recorded music performances by artists from across Pakistan. Atif Aslam’s tribute to the magnum opus of the Sabri brothers, Tajdar-e-Haram is one of their most-watched videos, clocking over 11 million views to date,” it read on the blog post.
The video sharing website was banned in the country since 2012, after a blasphemous clip was posted on it. The Supreme Court ordered that the website be blocked in Pakistan and this was done from September 17, 2012.
Additional Attorney General (AAG) Aamir Rehman told a two-bench judge comprising Ejaz Afzal Khan and Justice Qazi Faez Isa that a complaint hell had been established which could monitor and ban websites that contained offensive or blasphemous content. Justice Isa was appreciative of YouTube as an educative and informative video sharing website and said that it was beyond his understanding as to why people looked for blasphemous content.
“I am unable to understand why people look for blasphemous content on the Internet in the first place. A gun can kill, but it also helps protect the lives of many,” he said.
The bench ordered all relevant bodies such as the PTA and PEMRA to come up with effective ways to deal with the menace of blasphemous content and pornography over the internet.
