Efforts are underway to subjugate social media. The reason is simple: social media has evolved over the years to offer a platform alternative to mainstream print and electronic media– to bust myths, lay bare the truth and launch counter-narratives. Further, social media is swift to spread news and express opinion on the latest happenings.
On 11 August 2016, the then Parliament passed the Prevention of Electronic Crimes Act (PECA) of 2016, Section 26 of which stated that parody or satire-based websites and social media accounts could be proceeded against for spoofing. Further, it was a punishable offense (with imprisonment for up to a term of three years and with fine) to run a website or share information relying on a counterfeit source.
Social media in its sovereign state poses a challenge of two kinds: first, it is now potent to deconstruct any attempt at post-truth; and second, it is now powerful to deflate the bubble of any populism. Social media has become an instrument of reckoning and remedying. It is obvious that hired and paid agents in both electronic and social media by any state institutions are inadequate to serve the purpose. The ordinance is one of the last-ditch efforts to construct the hope of political survival.
The PECA was partly in response to a malicious campaign run on social media against the then sitting government of Nawaz Sharif, who was vilified as Modi ka Yaar (a friend of India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi). Sharif was also accused of siphoning off billions of rupees to India for investment. Further, Sharif was blamed for employing hundreds of Indian labourers in his factories. Unfortunately, Pakistan’s top intelligence agency was found involved in supporting sit-ins (dharnas) and bolstering social media activists against Sharif.
Social-media-based campaigns played a significant role in plummeting Sharif’s popularity in the elections of 2018. Credulous minds foundered on post-truth politics. Populism constructed an imaginary narrative. Fake news left a decisive impact on the result of the elections. On 19 November 2020, invoking PECA 2016, the current government introduced new social media rules titled the Removal and Blocking of Unlawful Content (Procedure, Oversight and Safeguards) Rules 2020.
The rules handed down powers to the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority to remove and block the digital content that harmed, intimidated or excited disaffection towards the government or posed a threat to the integrity, security and defence of Pakistan. On 12 October 2021, the current government made more rules such as the Removal and Blocking of Unlawful Online Content (Procedure, Oversight and Safeguards) Rules 2021, which permitted the telecom regulator to block any website or platform on the directives of the court or the government or under any law.
Against the background of restrictions on electronic media, social media remained a focus of attention of both the policymakers and the hoi polloi. On 20 Februar, President Arif Alvi promulgated the presidential ordinance called the Prevention of Electronic Crimes (Amendment) Ordinance 2022, Section 20 of which made an amendment to the PECA increasing the jail term from three years to five years for defaming any person or institution. Interestingly, the ordinance evaded defining fake news. Though the shelf-life of the ordinance is six months, if it is not protected by Parliament, the ordinance has made online public defamation a cognizable and non-bailable offence with up to five years imprisonment.
With the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA), any person from the public at large can file a complaint on behalf of someone, who could be any company, association or body of persons, which could be an institution, organization or any other body established by the government, and acting as a public office holder or a public figure. The proclaimed objective of the recent presidential ordinance, as flaunted by Federal Law Minister Barrister Farogh Naseem, is to discourage social media from spreading fake news.
The ordinance drew criticism for its being a ploy to suppress the voice of journalists. The Pakistan Federal Union of Journalists challenged the ordinance. On 24 February 2022, the Islamabad High Court restrained the FIA from acting upon Section 20 of the ordinance which had permitted the FIA to arrest a person on complaint.
The era of fake news is tyrannical. It is known that fake news played a role in defaming Nawaz Sharif and his party during the campaign for the 2018 general elections. One of the actors implicated in spreading fake news was the person involved in the notorious Mediagate (or Anchorgate) scandal (2012), revealing that certain media personalities were involved in receiving payment for staging talk shows on electronic media. Similarly, it is also known that Pakistan’s Supreme Court disqualified Sharif on flimsy contrived grounds in the Panama case judgment and ensured his exclusion from the political arena. This was how the court tried to influence the electoral choice of the people and shape up the political milieu.
Likewise, it is also known that intelligence agencies ran social media accounts, directly or indirectly, with fake identities and dubious names, and sponsored certain v-loggers (and even electronic media channels) to sway public opinion. Furthermore, it is also known that some journalists were attacked and tortured by “unknown assailants” for the crime of expressing opinion and debunking the government’s truth. The consequent judicial-military nexus earned notoriety. Now, Pakistanis are being told that the military is distancing itself from politics and the judiciary is on the course to retrieving independence.
The point is simple, the institutions sensitive to news or opinionated discussions need to avoid jumping into politics, whether the institution be the judiciary or the military. The self-assumed Big Brother posture of any institution is gratuitous unless necessitated by the Constitution. Respect is earned and not extracted. In this age of immense discussion, fake news is difficult to last per se. The next general elections are expected in October 2023. A political crisis is brewing, meant for tripping over. Anxiety ravages equanimity.
Social media in its sovereign state poses a challenge of two kinds: first, it is now potent to deconstruct any attempt at post-truth; and second, it is now powerful to deflate the bubble of any populism. Social media has become an instrument of reckoning and remedying. It is obvious that hired and paid agents in both electronic and social media by any state institutions are inadequate to serve the purpose. The ordinance is one of the last-ditch efforts to construct the hope of political survival.
