Gone are the times when one was free to express oneself over the internet as the cyber crime bill has finally been passed to be followed all over Pakistan. For those who don’t really know what the bill states, here are some of the major and highlighted features of the new bill. Firstly, the bill has restricted us in such a way that we are now bound in terms of expressing ourselves about anything. You cannot have a debate on religion; you cannot send a simple message to the opposite sex as he or she might think of it as inappropriate; you cannot talk about anything that is ‘indecent’; and you cannot have the privacy you once had since whatever you are doing is now being monitored by the government. All these steps taken by the government are to ensure there are no criminal activities going on over the Internet, and yet people didn’t take out a little time to question the authorities. Why? Has the government taken a step too far, or have the people just made a habit of not being happy with anything? The question is not if people like it or not; the question is why people needed it in the first place; why it was so important for the bill to be passed now; why the government had to take any action. Nothing happens without any cause, and that is the case here too; we have time to criticise laws, but we don’t see that we are the ones who desperately ask for them. Yes, there are things that one wouldn’t like about the bill, and yes, it does restrict one to some extent, but then again, it is not the criticism that is to be noticed. It is the change that it is bringing in society. Talking about the recent events due to which there was an urgent need of this bill, we can bring the University of Karachi incident under our consideration where a professor was charged and suspended for harassing a female employee of the same university. He was found guilty as the allegations against him were found true; he was posting inappropriate pictures of the complainant over the Internet. Another case is that of Hamza Ali Abbasi. Most of us remember how one of his posts in which he showed support and praised Burhan Wani was removed from Facebook. Apart from that, several more of Abbasi’s posts regarding political and social issues of Pakistan have been removed. Not to forget that Facebook did not only delete the post but also deactivated his Facebook account, which was reactivated after Facebook removed the ‘inappropriate’ post. While having a chat with Jaffar Zaidi, a producer of current affairs at Din News, we asked him what his take on this issue was and he said, “I don’t know why people are criticising it so much when they were the ones to ask for change; I think it is a very productive step taken by the government for protecting people from cyber crime. It is a good bill, especially for women who are being objectified and targeted in our society since so long. It has made cyber surfing and its usage very secure. But yes, I would definitely say that everything comes with pros and cons; this bill can bring many changes in a positive way, but it is also a little challenging for people since many minor aspects have been focused upon, and obviously, people of Pakistan do not like to be restricted in any way.” We see how so many magazines and people are reacting to the bill in such an adverse way. MangoBaaz came up with a critique on it, and many blog posts were published, through which we analysed how people were only being negative and not seeing the bright side. It is not that they are oblivious to the advantages the bill would bring in society; they just do not want to accept it. Many of us face cyber bullying or cyber harassment in one way or the other, at some point, and we know how insecure we feel while being a victim of this crime. In Pakistan, people are targeted usually on purpose and not just for the sake of fun, and we have seen that mostly these targets are celebrities. We talked to Hira Salman, one of the many famous and charming personalities of our drama industry, and asked her for her opinion on the matter, and she said, “I am very happy this has finally happened, it was about time. I know how it feels like, how crushing it is because I have been a victim too. It hasn’t been long since I first made my Facebook account, and it was hacked just a week later. I had tons of my pictures in it, and although I knew there weren’t any pictures that could be of the sort that could publically ‘defame’ me, but with the advanced technology one can expect anything. I did not care about it before it became a major problem for me; somebody called me on my mobile and my landline numbers, and started to blackmail me. He used to ask me for money and threaten he would publically humiliate me. All praise to Allah, nothing ever happened, and because I had contacts, I got my account back, but living in Pakistani society it sometimes gets really hard to cope with such situations when you have your whole family around you.” Freedom of expression is great, as long as it is not being a problem for any other person. You cannot defame a person over the Internet, and then expect him/her to be calm about it. A great deal of damage has happened because of cyber stalking and freedom of expression on the Internet in the past few years, and I think we would all agree that it is time we put a stop to that. People have attempted suicide because of cyber bullying, and reputations of many people have been damaged. All of that was criticised by people, and now that the government has finally taken a step against it and passed a bill that ultimately is going to profit everybody, people have issues against that too. Criticism makes sense when something has been done and it has failed, but in our society it seems as if people do not even want to give things a shot. Either way, think if you are cyber safe now or not. The writer is a student of Media Studies at Kinnaird College for Women, Lahore