IT is an indictment, but an unsurprising one. According to the Washington DC-based research firm Freedom House, Pakistan is at the lowest tier of its Freedom on the Net 2016 index. It stands in the company of several countries that have earned notoriety for tight controls over the dissemination of information and access to the online world, including China, Iran and Saudi Arabia. With a zero ranking signifying greatest freedoms and 100 the least, Pakistan is placed at a depressing 69. The report notes that internet penetration stands at only 18pc; there have been several instances where content has been blocked and social and political commentary censored. Further, it points out that the passage of the Prevention of Electronic Crimes Act this year, despite strong objections from civil society, contains clauses enabling censorship, surveillance and rights violations. Pakistan’s ranking would have been even worse, but the end of the years’-long ban on YouTube affected the overall score.

The sad reality is that the voices of a handful of internet activists notwithstanding, the impediments to online freedoms have become so entrenched as to have been rendered ‘normal’. There is the tug of war over the control of narrative, with laws continuing to refer to nebulous concepts such as the ‘national interest’. Then there are hurdles of a technical nature, such as the reliance on mobile technologies as opposed to the more reliable broadband internet. In view of this, the very least that needs to be done is to ensure greater transparency in the decision-making process of blocking content, which at the moment is arbitrary; and greater heed should be paid to the reservations of activists. Further, there must be more reflection on the fact that no one is disputing the need for a law such as the Prevention of Electronic Crimes Act, but the latter remains seriously flawed. As the primary piece of legislation regulating the online world, all subsequent legislation will rest upon its failings.

Published in Dawn November 19th, 2016