Daily Times

KARACHI: Internet penetration has been incredibly impressive in Pakistan owing to expansion of 3G/4G services by telecom operators in various cities and towns, which has led the country to gain attraction of global companies to enhance businesses and services on customised basis to serve the interest of customers.

In Pakistan, mobile Internet broadband was launched in 2014 which paced up the growth of Internet users. Out of 52 million broadband connections, there are more than 49 million mobile broadband users with 3G and 4G connections so far with consistent growth, according to the Pakistan Telecom Authority (PTA).

Not only telecom giants including service providers and gadget makers are taking keen interest in Pakistani markets, but globally recognised social networking companies such as Facebook has become active seemingly to focus on Pakistan and specific demands of its local audiences.

According to Internet World Stats, there are 32 million Facebook users registered in Pakistan, out of 44.6 million Internet users in the country, by end of 2017. The country is ranked 25 throughout the world with considerable growth in the number of people using the social-networking sites.

These users are consuming social-network sites not only for infotainment and networking but also for commercial purposes and social causes, which can be seen as significant number of groups, pages, events, polls and hashtag created by Pakistanis.

Facebook, a globally recognised company, continued its research on Pakistani market. Initially, it introduced various features specifically for Pakistani market. These included a feature of facial recognition, registering yourself as a possible blood donation candidate, and now a profile photo guard tool.

Among these features and tools, the latest one is about guarding your profile photo which is believed to be extremely helpful for subscribers of the Facebook in Pakistan especially for women. It is anticipated that the number of female users will be increased with the introduction of this new tool.

“This new tool gives people in Pakistan more control over who can download and share their profile pictures. In addition, we are exploring ways people can more easily add designs to profile pictures, which our research has shown helpful in deterring misuse,” Nashwa Hussien Aly, Facebook head of policy for Middle East and Africa, explained to Daily Times, speaking about the reason behind the launch of the new tool in Pakistan.

“Profile pictures are an important part of building community on Facebook because they help people find friends and create meaningful connections. But not everyone feels safe adding a profile picture. In Pakistan, we have heard that people want more control over their profile pictures, and we have been working over the past year to understand how we can help. This launch is part of our ongoing commitment to keeping people safe online,” Aly said.

“Women are underrepresented on the internet in Pakistan today, and we are trying to help make Facebook a safe place for them to be online,” she said, adding that Facebook cares about bringing more women online in Pakistan.

“Facebook wants to help everyone, including women, feel comfortable adding pictures of themselves, so that they may successfully find connections, build a community, and do great things on Facebook. We are working to understand the best way to address this issue in partnership with safety experts and NGOs. This is a pilot test that gives people more control over how other people interact with your profile picture which will help us understand the impact of different features,” she explained.

The official said that Facebook took the issue of safety very seriously. “Our job is to provide a safe space for people to connect and share things that are important to them and at the same time make sure that we are keeping those people safe and free from abuse. That is extremely challenging given the size of our population and its global diversity. That’s why we work with a variety of non-profits, academics and our community to help create a safe space online. It is something we are very committed to and we are working hard every day to get it right and get better at it,” Aly added.

She said that in addition to control and privacy tools, robust reporting mechanisms empowered people to report abuse of community standards. “We have other tools that give people more power to control what they see and what others see about them on Facebook.”

Published in Daily Times, March 24^th  2018.