“Burgers” is a mocking term for affluent, Westernized young Pakistanis.

Pakistan has a long history of banning technology. The national government still hasn’t lifted its ban on YouTube, put in place to prevent blasphemous material from setting off riots like those in Egypt and Libya last year and at one point threatened to block all of Google instead.  It has in the past banned Facebook; virtual private networks, a secure way of connecting to the internet; and in a particularly ill-thought-out move, text messages containing swear words.

On the other hand, while Pakistan is second only to Iran in the National Security Agency’s top targets for surveillance, at least Pakistanis don’t have to worry too much about being spied on by their own government. Zardari justified the three-month ban by explaining that his government does not have the ability to “extract intel” from the apps it is shutting down.

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