Daily Times

Normalcy might be on the horizon. Reports of slow albeit uninterrupted access to social media platforms in different areas of Pakistan suggest that the government is finally done with its latest tinkering with the internet.

Meanwhile, after months of rife speculations about the installation of a firewall causing a frustrating slowdown in the service, IT Minister Shaza Fatima finally admitted to a vague upgrade of a “web-management system” in the same breath as rooting for high internet speed. 5G or not, the recent past has been excruciating for people, companies and schools, unbearably for the country’s growing freelance community, which claimed over 30 per cent reduction in their business within a week.

Slow internet speeds and limited access to social media platforms render them unable to meet deadlines, communicate with clients, and deliver quality work so much so that the world’s most popular freelancing platform, disabled many Pakistani accounts. As more and more work shifts to competitors like India and Bangladesh, hundreds of thousands of virtual assistants and IT professionals will soon find themselves in an extremely precarious position.

On Thursday, the Pakistan Software Houses Association regretted an impending loss of up to $300 million due to internet disruptions, which stands in bizarre contrast to the government’s much-touted policy to develop IT exports.

To ensure that its concern for internet safety is taken seriously, the government must first demonstrate how it is fully capable of striking a balance between safeguards against digital terrorism with the overall interests of the nation. Not to make light of genuine issues of hate speech, misinformation and dissemination of propaganda against the state, but we are in no position to throw the baby out with the bathwater.

Internet access has, in the last decade, allowed young men and women to earn a respectable livelihood from the comfort of their homes. These suicidal instances would only mean a greater exodus of skilled professionals to other markets because working in Pakistan has become increasingly difficult. Hopefully, that is not what the Sharif administration had in mind before they unveiled plans for major IT cities. *