ISLAMABAD: National Counter Terrorism Authority (NACTA) has developed an online reporting portal, aimed at countering online extremism and misuse of the internet and social media in Pakistan.
“Surfsafer “is an online reporting portal for Pakistanis to report extremist online content freely, securely and anonymously. The other purpose of the responsive web portal was to create eyes and ears in cyber-sphere to counter radical and extremist ideology in the online realm.
The implementation status (NACTA Review – December 2017) of the National Action Plan (NAP) on Tuesday revealed that the mission of surfsafer (https://surfsafe.pk) is to counter online extremism, map and eliminate extremist content, help victims of extremism by regaining space for values of moderation, love and fraternity in cyber-sphere through community participation and ultimately making the internet a safer place for everyone.
It said that in order to filter social media sites and enable vigilance against cyber-crimes, The Prevention of Electronic Crimes Act-2016 had already been passed by the parliament and constant vigilance of internet traffic had resulted in the blocking of 1,447 URLs which hosted extremist content. NACTA and the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) have been maintaining close coordination on this issue.
The review further revealed that mobile applications were also being developed for monitoring suspicious online activities. These were scheduled to be launched on Google Play Store and Apple Store soon.
NACTA’s Android and iOS applications (Tat’heer apps) are mobile-based user-friendly systems which would enable a common citizen to report any incidence of hate speech or extremist content in the form of video, audio, photo and URL/text visible to them in the cybersphere.
Tat’heer (literal meaning “to sanitise”) is a multi-pronged cyber terrorism counter drive by NACTA which included mapping of radical content available on internet/social media, and measures to counter such content and its spread and dissemination.
It should be mentioned here that social media and the internet have a significant impact on the lives of people by enabling access to information and audio-visual media, among other resources.
However, these modern tools were now being used to promote, recruit and train militants, besides funds collection and money transfers to terrorist organisations. This is precisely why the sector had received special attention during the formulation of NAP.