PTA Clarifies about Blocking Content According to Facebook Standards

In the recent past, there has been a long debate going on about restriction on online freedom or freedom of opinion. Many have argued that PTA is doing it as a political move. They only remove posts which are not in the favor of their side. And they are biased towards certain group.

Facebook has released a report lately. It stated that over 2,203 posts or videos have been blocked in Pakistan for allegedly violating local laws. And it is the highest number of content restrictions for any country from January to June 2019. Pakistan constituted about 14% of the total restrictions imposed in this time period. This is considered as fairly high and was condemned by different civil societies.

PTA Clarifies about Blocking Content According to Facebook Standards

But in response Pakistan Telecommunication Authority PTA has completely denied these allegations. The PTA has made it clear that they are only suspending accounts based on Facebook’s community standards. An official of PTA said that it made requests to suspend accounts related to blasphemy, pornography, impersonation and indecent, defamatory and anti-state content.

He also added that these sort of contents come under the jurisdiction of  Prevention of Electronic Crimes Act, 2016.  And its sole purpose is to prevent social media and web users from dangerous and harmful content. Therefore, they are clarifying that every content which has been block were in coherence with rules and regulations of the state.

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The PTA further added that it encouraged freedom of speech and opinion. But it can’t promote content which is not in accordance with the constitution of Pakistan.

The authority also stated that they are in joint collaboration with Facebook to eliminate the spread of fake news. And eliminating misinformation and false news is their only primary motive. Furthermore, there is no biased behavior of any sort.