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Slammed by global tech giants, Pakistan to revisit Internet censorship rules

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Slammed by global tech giants, Pakistan to revisit Internet censorship rules

AAMIR SAEED

February 29, 2020

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s government will review its sweeping rules on Internet censorship released earlier this month, officials said, after the unveiling led to an uproar from global Internet companies and criticism from local civil libertarians that the regulations violated freedom of speech.

Earlier this week, through a group called the Asia Internet Coalition (AIC), global tech giants Facebook, Twitter and Google warned Prime Minister Imran Khan in a scathing letter that they would leave the country and its 70 million Internet users in a digital lurch if the new rules remained as written and were not revised.

In response to the public outcry, the government constituted a four-member committee and officials pledged this week they would review the new rules in consultation with segments of civil society, tech companies and journalists, and would find new consensus on regulating Pakistan’s digital media content.

“The new rules will ensure complete transparency and freedom of expression, and we are having our first meeting on Monday over the issue,” Dr. Arslan Khalid, the Prime Minister’s focal person on digital media, and a member of the new committee, told Arab News on Saturday.

“We cannot leave social media unregulated to spread hate speech and harm our national security,” Khalid said, but added: “The government doesn’t intend to stifle freedom of expression either.”

In 2018, Prime Minister Imran Khan assumed office in Pakistan in huge part on the back of his party’s social media presence and popularity online, but his government has shown little tolerance for criticism of the state and its institutions since coming to power.

Pakistani government’s requests for removal of content from global social media sites Facebook, Google and Twitter have vastly increased in the last two years, according to the companies’ transparency reports that are available online. Last year, hundreds of thousands of websites were additionally blocked by the government to censor blasphemy, criticism of the state, pornography and other material.

But in the absence of any law of data protection in Pakistan or local rules regulating social networking platforms, the government has had a hard time getting compliance from global companies.

Under the government’s new regulations, known as the “Citizens Protection (Against Online Harm) Rules 2020,” social media companies would have to remove or block any ‘unlawful content’ from their websites within 24 hours after being reported by a government officer known as the national coordinator.

Additionally, the companies are required to set up permanent offices in Islamabad, and set up servers to store data in the country. In case a social media company fails to abide by the provision of these rules, it can be blocked entirely, face a penalty of over $3 million or both.

Firdous Ashiq Awan, Pakistan’s de facto information minister said this month the rules were introduced to protect the country’s social, cultural and religious values, and officials have denied the regulations are aimed at curbing freedom of expression.

But information technology experts say the new rules have the potential to cripple the country’s digital economy as Pakistani users and businesses face the risk of isolation from the growth potential of the Internet economy.

“The government should immediately de-notify these rules,” Badar Khushnood, an IT expert who has worked for Facebook and Twitter, told Arab News.

“The existing rules are a stumbling block to our freelancers and online businesses that are helping the country fight unemployment and bring in foreign exchange.”

Journalists’ bodies have also rejected the rules, saying they are meant to curb freedom of expression guaranteed in the constitution.

“We cannot accept these draconian rules,” Afzal Butt, former Pakistan Federal Union of Journalists, told Arab News. “The government wants to stifle the freedom of speech and press under their garb.”

https://www.arabnews.pk/node/1634916/pakistan
 
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They should be allowed to leave. Tech giants are making truck loads of money from Pakistan, pay no taxes and facilitate terrorists and militants.

If they need Pakistani users, they can come back after meeting our demands. Otherwise, we'll build our own system like China has.
 
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They should be allowed to leave. Tech giants are making truck loads of money from Pakistan, pay no taxes and facilitate terrorists and militants.

If they need Pakistani users, they can come back after meeting our demands. Otherwise, we'll build our own system like China has.

Look how they suck up to India and other states..

Pakistan must push ahead. It is no wonder that that Alice UNwell actually condemned Pakistan for coming forward with this legislation.
 
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Typical excuse of human right and freedom of speech to hide their nature of generating fake news to serve some country global domination and imperialism. Pakistan need to stand firm and rebuke back those media firm. They need to be taught a lesson. Pakistan need no advice from those profit making media on how they shall set their domestic law and run the country.
 
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They would leave ? Ok help them to leave by a straight ban.

My question: is Defense.pk website using google’s and facebook’s tech for ads and analysises ?

Do we have IT companies who could replace them ?

Gov of Pakistan should remind those companies what they did or are doing with private data ? Cambridge Analycta ? I remember even Facebook spied on WhatsApp users using a VPN before buying the WhatsApp company...

And Gov Of Pakistan should remind then the rola of US against Huawei for National Security reasons... so they have to comply to our rules if the want to continue to make money inside Pakistan.

On the other side we should launch lot of awareness campaigns about safety and protection of personal data, what usage have or can have our personal and private data... and how to protect ourselves.

And third side is Gov of Pakistan should help private sector to setup companies like google facebook Microsoft etc... I’m not saying GOP should own those companies but should offer hire people who have expertises in IT, business etc for advices, offer environment (building/offices, data centres etc), free of taxe for 2 to 5 years period etc...

And of course we won’t go anywhere if we don’t have a proper modern education system...

I could be wrong but here are my 2 anays ki soch.
 
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They would leave ? Ok help them to leave by a straight ban.

My question: is Defense.pk website using google’s and facebook’s tech for ads and analysises ?

Do we have IT companies who could replace them ?

Gov of Pakistan should remind those companies what they did or are doing with private data ? Cambridge Analycta ? I remember even Facebook spied on WhatsApp users using a VPN before buying the WhatsApp company...

And Gov Of Pakistan should remind then the rola of US against Huawei for National Security reasons... so they have to comply to our rules if the want to continue to make money inside Pakistan.

On the other side we should launch lot of awareness campaigns about safety and protection of personal data, what usage have or can have our personal and private data... and how to protect ourselves.

And third side is Gov of Pakistan should help private sector to setup companies like google facebook Microsoft etc... I’m not saying GOP should own those companies but should offer hire people who have expertises in IT, business etc for advices, offer environment (building/offices, data centres etc), free of taxe for 2 to 5 years period etc...

And of course we won’t go anywhere if we don’t have a proper modern education system...

I could be wrong but here are my 2 anays ki soch.

They want data and insight into Pakistan's database. One thing to note is that India is/has passed data protection bill even severe then ours and not a peep from anyone throught the world be it journalists or these companies. Whereas we have even drafted a paper, all this talk is based on assumption. But from companies,journalists to even Alice Wells everyone has been on fire.
 
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they can leave..there are always workarounds to use their services..

Alice inwonderland Wells is personally overlooking the ptm accounts it seems.
 
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They want data and insight into Pakistan's database. One thing to note is that India is/has passed data protection bill even severe then ours and not a peep from anyone throught the world be it journalists or these companies. Whereas we have even drafted a paper, all this talk is based on assumption. But from companies,journalists to even Alice Wells everyone has been on fire.


Of course they want full insight. After all their business model is based on it. But when they could hit 2birds with one stone... that’s why Mrs Wells and all other institutions having interests are on fire...

Now we have to have balanced approach. On one side our cyber economy depends on those companies, on the second side we have to protect our own data.

That’s why we could help them to leave our country with a full straight ban. But it will have impact on our side. So we have to take steps to offer same services to our own people.

I don’t know what our draft is saying, but draft or not draft futur economy (if not already the case) will be based on control of data.

So google or not google, facebook or not facebook, microsoft or not microsoft, we have to start several projects as the JF17 one or our nukes one... projects starting from basic services to the most developed ones with full ecosystems. And I’m sure we have lot of IT talents, we may just lack in visionary leadership and political will...
 
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It'll be stupid on part of Pakistan to take on these tech giants. Pakistan is not critical to their operations. They wouldn't alter or make further investments for data security (to your country specific) since it doesn't make economic sense to them.

Somebody was saying these tech giants make huge profits from Pakistan. Could they also share actual revenues from Pakistan to these companies? And compare those to the level of investments it takes for these companies to store data locally. Lol, please stop with the nationalistic jingoism and smell the coffee.
 
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Don't count everything by money which is not a Muslim culture. These bloodsucking tech companies can leave as soon as possible. They are commonly used to destabilize Muslim nations. Those of local wakalats of these companies are national enemies.
 
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We are living in parallel universe:

Translation of an article published by Kulturegeek.fr in french and translated with google translate service :

Original article: https://kulturegeek.fr/news-190443/internet-justice-autorise-google-autres-droit-censure



Internet: Justice Authorizes Google And Others To Censure
March 1, 2020 @ 10:39 PM Jean-Baptiste A. 0 GoogleInternetJusticeYouTube
Google and the other tech giants have every right to remove content from each of their platforms, as the US justice system announced this week, all without violating the US Constitution. This is the right of censorship.



The San Francisco Court of Appeal ruling dismisses a complaint by conservative media, PragerU, who accused YouTube of violating the first amendment to the US Constitution, which regulates freedom of speech and the press, among other things. This article of the Constitution applies to government institutions but not to private entities. However, despite its two billion monthly users, YouTube (which belongs to Google) "remains a private forum, not a public forum subject to the review of justice under the first amendment," wrote the court of appeal.

PragerU believed that Google had broken the law by arbitrarily restricting access to some of its videos on subjects as diverse as gender and environmental issues. The media also claimed that similar videos uploaded by more liberal media had not been treated the same.

Following the court decision, YouTube told AFP that "Google products do not discriminate politically" and that the group is taking "every precaution to design our products and apply our procedures so as not to take into account political inclinations ”. For its part, PragerU says it will not stop there will continue "to alert the public to the censorship of conservative ideas by the tech giants" according to the words of the marketing manager of PragerU
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So what is the real problem those companies having with Pakistan ?

==> Hybride war, 5th gen war against us.
 
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the stupidity of arguments and lack of knowledge of social media by above posters is appalling to say the least .

like a frenzied lynch mob, posters here baton charge anything ---



1. let them leave pakistan,

2. those blood suckers social media companies

3. they support PTM pages




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facebook, twitter, google , = their stock mkt cap is x4 times pakistan total GDP . for them, pakistan doesnt count a bit sans a data listening post . asking them to 'regulate' and open offices here is plain stupid

on one hand, our courts are letting go PTM activists and granting them bails, even MNA seats are given to them, yet on the other hand, we are 'scolding' facebook to block their pages, WTF


the only way is to make your own social media = wechat, VK, QQ ( like russia and china did )
, and i doubt we can do that ,,, ( our IT talent sucks to be honest)
 
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Another U turn.

These companies give two hoots about freedom of speech and expression, what matters is income generation. If you generate enough revenues they will comply with your demands. If you don't generate enough revenue, they will show the middle finger to any demands by the government.
 
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