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CWA # 1323, 20 May 2024
Pakistan Reader
State of Media in Pakistan (PR Review-II) | Four Takeaways on Disinformation in Pakistan

  Tiara Marie Warjri

1. An increase in population and internet usage
Pakistan’s population as measured in January 2024 stood at 242.8 million, increasing by two per cent between early 2023 and the start of 2024. According to the Global Digital Insights on Pakistan’s Digital 2024, there were 111 million internet users in Pakistan at the start of 2024, when internet penetration stood at 45.7 per cent. Pakistan was home to 71.7 million social media users equating to 29.5 per cent of the total population, which is why the need of the hour is the implementation of legislative measures and supervision of manipulation of data and information. According to the Pakistan Economic Survey 2022/23, the country’s literacy rate is 62.8 per cent. The survey revealed the literacy rate of Punjab was the highest among provinces, at 66.3 per cent. Further, the literacy rate for women in the country was 51.9 per cent, while for men it was 73.4 per cent. According to a Special Report produced by the US Institute of Peace, focus group surveys proved that only five per cent of the mass prefer consuming their news through newspapers. They viewed social media as a more egalitarian form of news escaping the varnished versions that propagate elite narratives and political agendas. Participants of the focus groups claim to have found personal channels of journalists on YouTube that speak against the rules set out by the Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority (PEMRA). Since roughly 35 per cent of Pakistan’s population is under 15, and 64 per cent under 30, efforts to support media literacy have vast potential to make a difference in the long-term.
 
2. The adoption of stifling media laws.
In order to counter the threat of disinformation, Pakistan has adopted many strict regulations that restrict the freedom of press and speech. The Pakistan Electronic Crimes Act 2016 (PECA) criminalized certain kinds of speech, including “offences against the dignity of a natural person.” This act claimed that if an individual is found to be defaming a person or institution - such as the army or the judiciary -they could be denied bail and be jailed for up to five years instead of three. The accused must be tried within six months, and the offence has also been made cognizable, enabling police to make an arrest without a warrant. In February 2022, a presidential ordinance allowed anyone to file a complaint against so-called fake news posted on Twitter and Facebook. Political opponents and civil society both have criticised PECA as an attempt to stifle freedom of speech. Compliance through the censorship of ‘unlawful content’ on social media was formalized by the Removal and Blocking of Unlawful Online Content (Procedure, Oversight and Safeguards) Rules 2020, drafted under PECA. The rules maintain that subject to the provisions of PECA, social media or social network services are bound to remove content that breaches Pakistani law. These restrictions include slander against “glory of Islam, security of Pakistan, public order, decency and morality and; integrity and defence of Pakistan.” The government also launched a media campaign in 2017 to advise the public to exercise self-restraint while using internet and social media.
 
3. Manipulation of information by Pakistan’s populist regimes and political agents
Modern populist leaders in Pakistan engage in the heavy use of social media to produce traction and incline citizens towards a certain political agenda using disinformation. The intrinsic link between populism and social media calls for an immediate checking on the powers of the people wielding legal authority. This is relevant in the case where former Prime Minister Imran Khan used an AI- generated voice to campaign for a virtual rally for his supporters from behind bars. Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif claimed that Khan’s main aim was to defame law enforcing agencies and the police by making baseless misleading allegations and feeding the public inaccurate information. The previous PTI government also launched an official Twitter account (@FakeNews_Buster) to target fake news and misinformation; however, it was criticised by media practitioners for its potential misuse against political opponents and dissidents. While Pakistan has indicated efforts to curb disinformation and fake news, the centralized control of PEMRA over all media platforms and distrust over the government’s counter-disinformation measures negate many of these efforts. In its latest transparency report, Twitter said that legal demands made by the Pakistani government to remove or withhold content shot up 73 per cent compared to the first six months of 2020. The government’s reporting of tweets by journalists and news organisations to Twitter “undermines press freedom and freedom of speech as guaranteed by Article 19 of the Pakistani Constitution, and the right to information guaranteed by Article 19-A of the Constitution.” In 2020, the Removal and Blocking of Unlawful Content (Procedure, Oversight, and Safeguards) was passed during the coverage period and dramatically expanded authorities’ control over the online information space.
 
4. Cross border players piling onto growing disinformation
A significant instance of international contribution to disinformation in Pakistan is the release of DisInfo Lab's study, which exposed a 15-year disinformation network established by India to sway international and civil society opinions against Pakistan. Furthermore, an analysis of Twitter trends found that around 61 per cent of hashtags like ‘#Civil War Pak’ were established in India. This hashtag was used in 84,000 tweets, retweets, and responses by Twitter accounts based in India. In 2020, Pakistan also demanded the UN to investigate almost ten UN Human Rights Council affiliated NGOs that were recorded for promoting anti-Pakistan propaganda. This cyber disinformation campaign was instrumental in categorizing Pakistan in the grey list of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF). This hybrid war between the two has somewhat come down as Pakistan tackles these grievances through progress and improvement, such as the national architecture including seven ministries of the government and 50 departments and organizations (such as the Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan). At the core of this architecture was the establishment of a dedicated secretariat by the government, whose main objective was to coordinate with all the stakeholders including the anti-money laundering regulators. In October 2022, Pakistan was removed from the FATF Grey List due to significant improvements in the overall anti-money laundering (AML) / counter-terrorist financing (CFT) framework.

Tiara Marie is an undergraduate student at the Department of International Relations and Peace studies, St. Joseph’s University, Bengaluru.

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