Attorney General of Pakistan Khalid Jawed Khan informed the Islamabad High Court (IHC) during a hearing yesterday that the government was ready to review its controversial social media rules announced last year that would give the government sweeping powers to censor any content it deemed ‘unlawful’ and ‘inappropriate’. This broad and vague categorization drew the ire of relevant stakeholders such as the Internet Service Providers of Pakistan (ISPAK), rightly calling the measures “draconian”. Chief Justice Islamabad High Court Athar Manillah also concurred with these objections, saying that the matter of enforcing social media rules involved Article-19 (Freedom of Speech) and Article-19A (Right to Information) of the Constitution which were “related to fundamental rights”.
Although the PTI government projects itself as a progressive party that wants to establish a ‘digital Pakistan’, its approach towards this goal has been regressive and frankly embarrassing. Demanding social media giants such as Facebook and Twitter to setup their offices in Pakistan and provide access to their user databases as and when required by the government was met with a logical reply by the former saying that they would simply remove their respective platforms from the country if this policy was pursued. While that idea was thankfully dropped soon after, the government introduced a watered down version of the same with its content-regulation plans. One of the reasons for the severe criticism this move received is the general atmosphere of censorship that has prevails under the PTI government. No matter how many times Prime Minister Imran Khan repeats himself by saying that Pakistan’s media is more free than the UK’s, it does not change the fact that at no point in the past has print and electronic media been made to self-censor as much as under this administration. Social media is harder to regulate due its ubiquity and reach, which irks this government that is incapable of consuming any constructive criticism, something that is essential for a normally functioning democracy. That the government has agreed to take input from stakeholders before formulating and enforcing its social media rules is a welcome move. One hopes it does not turn out to be a redundant exercise with consultations being held just to go through the motions to satisfy the IHC and the government goes ahead with its original plan.
