PTA Replies To Social Media Blocking Arguement

PTA Chairman, Major General Amir Azeem Bajwa is reported to have said that the Pakistani Government should ban social media websites so that the profane content gets blocked or either should excel in technical abilities. He said in Senate Special Committee that irreverent content is mostly from international websites. And, now it has become a major issue. "The government should either formulate a policy and block social media websites in the country like China and the United Arab Emirates —developing social media platforms locally like China — or it should increase the technical capabilities of the PTA," he said. (Source: Dawn) Blocking Sites Statistics According to Chairman PTA, almost 39000 URLs are blocked for the last 9 years. The awareness of crime; sharing and producing this sort of content was also spread by advertisements. Almost 8500 complaints were registered in this regard and PTA has blocked approximately 40,000 websites. It was a very difficult task to monitor scornful content as they were hosted by the dark web in Pakistan. 850,000 pornographic websites were blocked. New Rules The blocked websites were accessed through proxies. Thereafter new policies are designed by PTA as per instructions of the government and will be submitted in upcoming days. The official further said that websites blocked by PTA can be easily accessed through a proxy. He said that the government had instructed the PTA to prepare new rules regarding the usage of social media and the authority will submit them soon. Chairman of the meeting, Barrister Saif Khan commented that these social media websites who produce blasphemous content earn from Pakistan and further, the revenue should be completely blocked. Moreover, he suggested that these international media platforms should send some of their representatives to Pakistan. It was notified by representatives of the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) that almost 12 cases were dealt with. Facebook and Twitter were not responding to complaints registered by FIA. Final News However, PTA said that there is false news regarding blocking social media websites.