Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi has said that the Internet needs regulation. Previous attempts were shot down or reversed because they violated the freedom of expression guaranteed by the Constitution. He made this anodyne statement while refusing to make any comment on the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority’s statement to the Islamabad High Court that the ban on X, the microblogging site previously named Twitter, had been imposed on the instructions of Interior Ministry, beyond saying that social media should not be misused. Mr Naqvi himself has spent a lifetime in the electronic media, and he would know very well that full use of freedom of expression can prove embarrassing to certain individuals. If these individuals are powerful enough, they will shoot the messenger, which is what banning a social media site amounts to.
It would perhaps not be right to single out the Pakistan government as being responsible, as governments all over the world are finding the greater scrutiny of the social media a problem. The essential aspect of social media is that it has broken the link between the medium and the message. Even now, in both electronic and print media, the message on the medium is determined by someone. On social media, Meta or X do not determine the message that does on their platforms. It was enough to ban a paper or a channel to stop the message. Unfortunately, social media has made consumers producers as well. It is not just a matter of reading the content, but of uploading content oneself. Or if not, of merely commenting or sharing.
Does the social media fulfil the primary function of media in a democracy, that of providing the citizen information so that he can make an informed choice? Perhaps not. But then, one can argue that traditional media don’t. It is unfortunate that whenever a government speaks of laws, it is out to hack away at freedom of expression. There is a definite need for regulation, but perhaps it is enough to improve the ordinary laws of the land. Any libel or slander is already liable to punishment; but the justice system is so cumbersome, that anyone libelled rarely sues. An efficient justice system does not need new laws or special courts; it needs a government and a judiciary intent on improvement. Without justice system reform, media laws will merely provide governments a tool for bending the media to it will. Hopefully, that is not what Mr Naqvi means.
