Daily Times

The courts of Pakistan, created to protect the rights of individuals equally, fairly and diligently, are fallible in their failure to tighten security and provide protection to Pakistanis using the internet. Complicated scenarios on the internet, masked by freedom of speech and expression, leave most people nationally, as well as internationally, defamed and damaged. Online users deal with the violation of their consent and suffer constant paranoia of the possible spreading of their personal information. Call recordings as well as the sharing of screenshots of digital conversations, videos and photographs can be used for nefarious purposes and are clearly a breach of privacy.

While social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Whatsapp protect the privacy of their users according to what they deem is right, governments across the world such as Pakistan seem to be unfortunately lax in enforcing the rights of the citizens on the internet. In 2019, Attorney General of Pakistan Anwar Maqsood Khan stated that making a video or recording an audio of anybody secretly, without his/her permission is a crime under the law of the land carrying 3 years jail time under Article 14(1). Despite the presence of this law, numerous video recordings, screenshots of conversations and private images are not only made and shared on the world wide web on a daily basis but, despite being illegally procured, evidence collected through mobile recordings is often used as a basis of conviction in the Islamic Republic of Pakistan – in complete contradiction of the law!

In an age of science, digital platforms are used to share information rapidly to all parts of the world. In Pakistan alone, more than 70 million citizens have access to the internet. The online world can be a dangerous place if governments do not create more laws or strictly enforce existing ones regarding the accountability of sharing false news, misinformation, rumors and hate speech. Such measures will not only will not only limit slander, bullying and bigotry, but will serve as a preventative towards private information being shared without permission in the first place.

Access to social media and a lack of checks by the government have also given rise to vigilante journalism. The role of vigilante journalists and professional journalists differ in various ways. Professional journalists not only factually check the information in their item of news, but work under certain legal confinements. Journalists working in Print or Electronic Media are aware of the potential defamation and libel charges if they breech good reporting standards. Despite knowing that social media users are not journalists, the demand for information post the advent of the 24/7 news cycle has created a thirst and impatience amongst people who are willing to accept any information they receive and pass it on without much care to its validity. Vigilante journalists and spreaders of their ‘news’ are driven by the psychological push and imagined accolades to become the first to report or share an incident. This has taken a toll on both real news and professional journalism.

In Pakistan, journalists are ostensibly protected under the “Protection of Journalists Act 2014”. Laws iterate the protection of journalist’s lives under the “Provision of Special Protection of journalists”, “Special Security initiatives for immediate protection of journalists at their residences”, and “Establishment of National Press Council for rapid response for journalistic problems”. These laws did not exist till 2014 and despite them, Pakistan still ranks as one of the most dangerous countries for journalists in the world. According to UNSECO, 78 Pakistani journalists have reportedly been killed since 1998. Thousands of journalists continue to be harassed, kidnapped and detained. While the government has failed to enforce these laws or chooses not to, vigilante journalists explicitly exploit them under the umbrella of protection the laws offer and are not subjected to the same scrutiny or threats as professional journalists, veiled by anonymity and the safety of their keyboards. The distortion of the law has inspired social media users to write or post anything freely, creating a cycle of inappropriate news and often carrying lies to create waves of paranoia and panic amidst the murky waters of internet.

The sharing of content without permission, while illegal and unethical, has deep emotional repercussions too. Vigilante journalists and social media users have created an intangible court where they are the judge, jury and executioner; deciding who is wrong and who is not, who has extramarital affairs and who has not, who is corrupt and who is virtuous. Whether it is a video of a person innocently saying “We are proud of you”, a black box recording from a crashed plane shared online, a private phone call between teenagers or unconfirmed news in unfortunate times of a pandemic, internet users have not only announced a judgement, decided the sentence, but have persecuted the person too. An internet judiciary blinded by and limited to only one side of the story shared by a screenshot, video or a picture, run their own court online hurting the victims emotionally. Facing humiliation, mockery and castigation, victims of unintentional or intentional emotional abuse, dive into chronic emotional depression which leads them to suicidal thoughts, emotional as well as internet deactivation and even death.

While the “Prevention of Electronic Crimes Act, 2016” exists as passed by the Majlis-e-Shoora, with a rising number of cases, social media users continue to manipulate other laws for protection and their kangaroo courts hold great power meting out public humiliation, biased opinions and distorted facts, Before these can be addressed, they have already spread like wildfire and the damage done is often incalculable and further reaching than any law can address. Offended parties often taking the law into their own hands to try and extract revenge, which creates further extrajudicial issues.

Statements masked by freedom of expression and freedom of speech by social media users and vigilante journalists go viral on the internet which often contain hate speech. Freedom of speech is a principle that supports the freedom of an individual or a community to articulate their opinions and ideas without fear of retaliation, censorship, or legal sanction. It is basically a guarantee to citizens to participate effectively in the functioning of democracy. However, the major challenge is how to ensure a balance between the provision of freedom of expression/speech while ensuring law and order, peace and security within a country that is diverse in terms of views, faiths, communities and beliefs such as Pakistan. The complexity of freedom of speech can be seen when misused to spread hate speech and fearmongering. And freedom of speech is often not extended to anyone who’s views don’t reflect a majority opinion or that of the loudest voices – leading to situations like the brutal murder of Mashal Khan or persecution of university lecturers like Junaid Hafeez for allegedly blasphemous statements. A further nuance of the intricacies of freedom of speech in Pakistan can be seen when journalists writing against government policy live in fear of being branded traitors and any criticism of state actors and institutions has far reaching consequences that threaten the lives of reporters. Freedom of Speech has habitually allowed hate speech to go unhindered in Pakistan and yet been a death knell for others – confining and muting minority voices.

Laws that protect are often misused and exploited, while they fail to protect those most in need of them. After 73 years of Pakistan, the Sindh Assembly is first province of Pakistan that has unanimously passed the bill to halt the infamous and unfortunate tradition of declaring journalists and writers as traitors in 2020. A bill awaiting to be exploited by vigilante journalists.

While most governments are floundering between the subtleties and exploitation of freedom of speech, or purposefully use it to their own purposes, social media platforms have created rules and regulations for their pages that discern between the freedom of speech and hate speech. Twitter, Facebook and Instagram have created windows where users can report their concerns. They allow reporting of posts which may contain ‘racist’ content, ‘harassment’, ‘sexual content’ etc. These social media platforms focus on protecting their users or rather clients and aim to keep them content. Whereas, governments across the world especially in Africa disregard such complaints. African countries have had a flourishing internet infrastructure; however, it did not have any laws till 2018 which protected its consumers, hereby, leaving them exposed. While most governments have ignored the fundamental right of privacy, social media platforms have tried to not only ensure privacy protection, but also started checking content containing pornography or racism, as well as posts spreading or creating hatred towards creeds, religion and castes according to their regulations. During the Corona Virus Pandemic and huge, violent protests for “Black Lives Matter”, Twitter removed the President of the United States of America’s tweet for “glorifying violence” despite the President’s public condemnation and threats to shut down the platform in the US.

Furthermore, Whatsapp has encrypted its calls, texts and video calls, securing their users from any threat of recording. However, the US has been on the battleground with Whatsapp for some time now over the protection of backdoor security of the digital communication medium. Similarly, British home secretary, Priti Patel suggested that encryption on Facebook-owned platforms was hindering investigations by law enforcement. Requests by the US as well as UK governments to ease encryption settings have been denied on the context that hackers will be able to hack into conversations as well, thus protecting their users from any sort of violation of their privacy. Not only have these social media platforms set rules and regulations to protect their users from law enforcement, but hackers too.

As the world grows increasingly digitised, the institutions of government and law need to step up and unravel the intricacies to ensure protection of those who need it and allow the persecution of those who don’t, without their own agendas coming into play and exploiting it themselves. Social media platforms cannot be left to solely uphold fundamental rights and defend users against social evils. In order for effective peace and safety, the world of the internet needs to be understood and addressed immediately. If it goes unheeded, a vigilante journalist exposing private information could very much be responsible for the next major global conflict, circumventing diplomacy to roil up the masses and create instability and destruction!

The writer is a freelancer