Expressing its inability to completely remove or block the blasphemous content from social media platforms and internet, the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) on Wednesday demanded sovereignty in its financing and administration affairs to stop blasphemous material for viewership in Pakistan.
PTA Chairman Ismail Shah raised this demand while giving a briefing to senate standing committee on information technology & telecommunication on the initiatives so far taken by the PTA to monitor and control blasphemous material on the internet.
He said latest and innovate technology and services of experts to handle this important task requires freedom in financing and administration affairs while we (PTA) have to face tough questions in Public Accounts Committee (PAC) regarding audit paras. “
PTA chairman also said alone we (PTA) can not completely remove or block blasphemous content from social media platforms and internet. Service providers like Facebook can directly stop such materials. We are in contact with Facebook and other service providers to stop such material and links for viewership in Pakistan.
Sharing details of steps taken by the PTA to monitor and control blasphemous contents on social media, Ismail Shah said the PTA had taken several steps even before the matter was taken up by the honourable court. He said Facebook was requested to block such material and the relevant accounts, and Facebook on several occasions took out the material. However, due to the nature of social media, new accounts were created with similar contents. He said Facebook has blocked ten accounts including two Facebook accounts with the name “Behnsa” and “Machar” and 93 blasphemous links for Pakistani viewership. Besides that, the PTA has also searched, identified and blocked 12,846 websites containing blasphemous content till date, said PTA chairman.
He said PTA has also developed an electronic portal to facilitate stakeholders to lodge complaints relating to any objectionable web content. In this regard, around 1700 complaints have been received so far which were disposed off accordingly.
Ismail Shah further said a huge amount of blasphemous material in different forms is produced every minute and is being uploaded on the internet. And, identification of such contents is not possible without human intervention. He said the PTA and the Ministry of Information and Technology have been in touch with social media platforms and issues are being highlighted before them. Technical solutions are also being explored and cooperation of the ministry of foreign affairs, the USA government, OIC and European Union (EU) may also be explored to address these problems more comprehensively. “More, local application development can help regulate and block objectionable content albeit not with 100pc success as even if the whole platform is blocked, people would have many other methods to reach and upload content on different platforms,” said PTA chairman.
Senate Standing Committee on Information Technology and Telecommunication which held here under the chair Senator Shahi Syed on Wednesday assured PTA with its full support in taking steps to block and remove blasphemous material from social media platforms and internet.
State minister for Information Technology, Senator Taj Muhammad Afridi, Senator Najma Hameed, Senator Shibli attended the meeting; secretary IT, FIA officials were also in attendance.
