ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) has received more than 8,000 complaints regarding the sharing of blasphemous content on social media websites.
According to a PTA official, “PTA has established a web analysis cell where 25 IT experts are working solely on identifying unlawful content on internet, including blasphemous material.”
He said that blasphemous material was being shared over the internet in different forms, including literature, pictures, audios and videos. He said that identification of blasphemous material without human intervention was not possible, adding that this was the reason why PTA had deployed a team of 25 IT experts for this purpose.
The official further said that, “PTA has blocked around 13,210 blasphemous links. In light of these facts, way too much content is being produced and uploaded on the internet every minute. It is almost impossible to block all links that carry blasphemous content.”
It is important to mention here that PTA has developed an electronic portal to facilitate stakeholders to lodge complaints relating to any objectionable web content. An email address was also advertised in the media to facilitate the general public regarding providing information about objectionable online content.
PTA had also requested the Higher Education Commission, Ministry of Information Technology and Federal Investigation Agency to upload these guidelines on their respective websites, while also requesting all stakeholders concerned to report objectionable content to the relevant platform directly.