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Title: Pakistan's Tech Lobby Warns That Slow Internet is Strangling IT
Industry

Link: https://it.slashdot.org/story/24/11/21/206251...

Pakistan's IT Industry Association (P@SHA) -- the nation's sole tech biz
lobby group -- has warned that government policy could lead to business
closures and financial losses among its constituents, and damage the nation's
IT exports. From a report: P@SHA's main beef is with a slowing of internet
access speeds, and government-imposed service outages. Pakistan went offline
in May 2022 around the time of mass political protests and blackouts have
since persisted -- prompting services like freelance gig platform Fiverr to
warn clients that hiring members from Pakistan could mean potential
disruptions. Fiverr matters in Pakistan, because the nation has a policy of
encouraging freelancers to sell their services online as part of a plan to
grow tech services exports. The nation even floated the idea of providing its
freelance workers with a tax holiday, subsidized broadband and health
insurance as a way of supporting the online labor force. But freelancers have
had a hard time of it since the August 2024 introduction of what appears to
be a new national firewall. Pakistan has long tried to limit access to what
it feels is inappropriate content, and the firewall was aimed at helping that
effort. But it greatly slowed internet access speeds -- making life hard for
freelancers and other online businesses.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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