The Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) chairman has said that the Islamabad High Court (IHC) has ordered it to block Twitter in 15 days, if it fails to conform to the government’s request of blocking offensive content.
According to a private news channel, the statement was given by PTA chairman on Wednesday, while briefing the Senate Standing Committee on Cabinet Secretariat.
The Senate Standing Committee formed a committee comprising officials of FIA, Ministry of Law, Ministry of Information and Technology and Cybercrime Cell.
The committee has been tasked to review and examine laws and put forward their proposals to make social media people friendly.
The PTA told the senate committee that several requests have been made to Twitter to block the offensive content but the micro-blogging website keeps ignoring the requests. Requests were sent to other social media avenues like Facebook and Youtube too and they obliged to the requests, said the PTA officials.
“An inquiry is being conducted against social media users who run fake accounts or spread fake news,” he added.
Stating that PTA and the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) have wide-ranging authorities, the chairman said, “We have called for a special system which can trace social media users.”
He further informed the committee that focal persons have been appointed to monitor the various social media websites.
PTA officials upheld that there are 30.5 million Facebook users in the country and that “in the last six years, 825,000 websites have been blocked of which 4,799 were anti-state, 3,719 anti-judiciary and 31,963 were anti-religion.”
The social media control act is being implemented and anyone violating cyber laws can face three years in imprisonment and/or Rs10 million fines, the officials added.
“Law enforcement agencies, including FIA, are cooperating in this regard,” they continued.
Published in Daily Times, August 17th 2018.
