In recent years, Pakistan has made various attempts to establish an overarching framework to counter the harsh criticism of the state, its institutions, and policies on social media. However, the authorities have repeatedly had to resort to extra-legal means to keep the ‘problem’ under control, owing to the inadequacy of legislative measures and the refusal of major platform operators to engage with our authorities’ concerns and entertain their requests for greater access to platform users’ information. Meanwhile, social media users appear to have grown increasingly confident in directing their criticism at the state, aided by the anonymity provided by most platforms. . They have recently directed extraordinary hatred at hitherto untouchable institutions. Understandably, this has upset those in command, who appear to be panicked by their inability to manage social media as readily as they can the country’s conventional media.
This appears to be the long and short of why the government has established two new agencies in recent days: the National Cyber Crimes Investigation Agency, which will replace the FIA’s Cybercrimes Wing, and the Digital Rights Protection Authority, which is pending cabinet approval. The DRPA, which appears to mimic the nomenclature for government ministries in George Orwell’s 1984, will, according to one account, “create a secure and trustworthy digital environment while promoting user protection.” However, individuals on the ground believe that the state-defined basis for DRPA’s existence is really a fig leaf. They claim that the authorities have long desired a watchdog who can freely pursue critics who become too bold online; they cite the approximately two dozen cases lodged against journalists since the Peca rules went into effect to illustrate their concerns. To be honest, the context in which these reforms are being implemented, as well as the apparent speed of progress, do not lend itself to a more generous assessment of the government’s aims. Just a day after the prime minister approved the DRPA, the military authorities released severe remarks on what they termed as “digital terrorism” perpetrated by “inimical forces”Sounds like a bad omen for the freedoms Pakistanis have grown accustomed to in the digital age.