The government in December 2024 introduced a bill in the National Assembly seeking to create a ‘Digital Nation’. The proposed legislation, which has now been taken up for passage by Parliament, talks about the ‘digital economy’, ‘digital governance’, ‘digital society’, ‘digital identity’, and so on.
The plan is very ambitious given that while Pakistan has a healthy broadband penetration and smartphone use rate, the digital infrastructure needed to sustain it at a countrywide level is still lacking. Furthermore, there is too much interference in digital policies and regulation of the digital sphere from the state, through mainly the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority, but also through other state institutions.
Take the case of the planned ‘Digital Commission’ that the legislation also seeks to establish. The role of the Digital Commission will be to provide guidance on policy and governance related to the setting up of the Digital Nation. The commission will have 17 members and 16 of these will be either politicians or bureaucrats. The 17th member will be the head of the Pakistan Digital Authority who is supposed to be an expert in the field. However, he or she will be overshadowed and outvoted by the overwhelming representation of politicians and bureaucrats (and a retired general in the case of the PTA chief) on the commission and the emphasis is likely to remain on policing and controlling the digital sphere, in particular, digital media and this is precisely what will retard the growth of a digital society rather than spread it far and wide across the country.
Fake news is not something that a government body or authority checks but rather it is the job of professionals
Another piece of legislation, a bill to amend the Prevention of Electronic Crimes Act of 2016 has also been passed by Parliament this past week and it vastly expands the scope of laws covering digital and social media. In fact, social media has now been covered for the first time in Pakistan as far as the law is concerned. The law will enable the federal government to set up a Social Media Protection and Regulatory Authority (SMPRA), which will most likely become the social media’s equivalent of PEMRA, which has been used by successive governments to censor and keep electronic media in check.
Under the same law, a Social Media Complaints Council will be set up. Any citizen who feels wronged by the dissemination or posting of fake news on a social media platform will be able to approach the Authority and seek the removal of said fake news - and also that action be taken by the Authority against the social media platform. It should be noted, however, that the law does not provide a mechanism or mention exactly how the Authority will check whether the claim of fake news filed by the complainant is correct.
Usually the world over, fake news is not something that a government body or authority checks but rather it is the job of professionals - in this case, news organisations and/or news journalists - the law however is completely silent on this crucial aspect of who exactly will determine whether the complaint is correct and also how it will be ascertained.
The major issue with the passage of this particular law is that its emphasis is mainly to provide the government of the day with a means to control and censor digital and social media. Since digital and social media are increasingly playing a pivotal role in setting narratives of political parties and groups and in channeling public and political dissent and critique of the government and various institutions of the state, and since the state already has laws and bodies in place to control and monitor print and electronic media, the SMPRA had to be set up, and backed by criminalising of fake news and misinformation so that social and digital media can also be controlled and censored.
That this is the primary objective of the government in the passage of this legislation is proven by the fact that the law was more or less bulldozed through Parliament without any debate and without taking the media and news organisations into confidence, let alone taking their opinion and viewpoint.