IT is easy enough to understand why online pornographic content ought to be filtered out in a country like Pakistan, notwithstanding counter arguments connected with free speech and digital freedoms. The online world is a tricky place, and for many the line between the images and videos they see on the web and the real world can easily become blurred. Considering that internet pornography can assume nasty forms, with paedophile and violent content being widely available, the argument for filtering this content becomes stronger. Regrettably, in response to a Supreme Court directive to ensure that such filters are in place, the Pakistan Telecommunications Authority has initiated a random and rambling effort to block almost 400,000 links, many of which have no connection with pornography. This exercise is more of an insult to the court’s directive than an effort at compliance. Instead of focusing on the task given to it, the PTA has turned itself into some sort of moral police, deciding on an ad hoc basis what content is offensive and what is not.
Such a haphazard and random effort does more damage than good. Going about the job haphazardly, as the PTA is doing, creates the risk of disrupting normal internet traffic as well. Trying to target pornographic websites through keyword searches has led the PTA to block medical journals and Disney websites, an absurd result of ‘implementing’ the court’s directive. The PTA is expected to demonstrate a little more mind when going about this task, and put in greater effort to first target the most damaging kinds of pornographic sites that feature violence or children. Perhaps help can be obtained from firms that have expertise in the area of locating specific URLs that link to content clearly defined as pornographic before creating any filters. It is also important to update these filters in real time as links come and go with the traffic. Filters to block hate speech and pornographic content will take a far more serious effort to implement than what the PTA has demonstrated thus far. Being the regulator for the high-tech sector, the PTA is expected to show more intelligence in how it executes its tasks thaan resort to the blanket banning of websites based on simple keyword searches. This sort of lazy, ad hoc approach simply makes it difficult for stakeholders to take the regulator and its capacities seriously.
Published in Dawn, May 26th, 2016