So what happened? Pakistan Telecommunication Authority ordered 70 Internet service providers to block access to YouTube because of an anti-Islamic Dutch movie trailer. The block was intended for Pakistan, but cut out about 2/3 of global internet traffic to YouTube, with Asia particularly affected. Requests for Pakistani subscribers contacting YouTube were routed to a "black hole" and discarded, but that data route was accidently published to the Pakistani telecom's international data carrier in Hong Kong. This went undetected by Hong Kong, who directed requests from its YouTube customers down the Pakistani black hole. This routing table was passed onto other carriers.
This is what happens when someone tries to censor the internet or conversely, hijacks it such as to distribute spam. That this type of unintentional mixup is possible has implications for E-Trade, banking and government.
(info from AP, paraphrased by Slugbug)
YouTube is very popular on Pakistani Facebook, as is vampire biting and all the other silly applications. & here is a popular message:
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