Daily Times

ISLAMABAD: While Pakistan tops the list of countries for making requests to block contents, Facebook has decided to launch digital literacy programme next year 2020 in order to create awareness among users to get benefits for use of technology.

The talk titled ‘Creating Safe Online Spaces: safety for women’ was organised by Face­book to highlight its effor­ts to eradicate content targeting women and children.

“In Pakistan, we are planning to launch digital literacy programme next year 2020 to help users to get best benefit of technology”, Facebook’s Head of Safety Policy Asia Pacific Amber Hawkes, Sehr Tariq Facebook’s Public Policy Manager and Shmyla Khan Programme and Research Officer Digital Rights Foundation (DRF) stated in a joint briefing to a select group of reporters here on Thursday.

Facebook Public Policy manager Sehar Tariq said that there was a very strict policy for teenagers to create an account.

“We have zero tolerance for child exploitation ima­gery and take proactive and aggressive measures to protect our young users from predators,” she said, adding that Facebook required a user to be at least 13 years old before they could create an account, but in some jurisdictions the age limit was higher.

“It will help women and children to ensure safety from intimidation and harassment”, they said and added that it could also help avoiding instances of honour killings in Pakistan because the display of any objectionable image without consent could cause problems for safety and security especially for women and children.

Shmyla said the cybercrime comes under the jurisdiction of FIA but the agency has limited capacity to deal with the complaints, besides the officials are gender insensitivity and slow to act.