ISLAMABAD – Information Minister Fawad Chaudhry announced on Wednesday that the government was gearing up to launch a crackdown against hate speech on social media in the next week.
Addressing an event in Islamabad, the minister said the government has established a mechanism through which hate speech on social media would be controlled.
A working group of our agencies, including the FIA discussed this, the minister shared.
Chaudhry expressed that the digital media was taking over traditional media adding that it was important to regulate social media as well.
He reiterated that the incumbent regime was establishing a new authority, Pakistan Media Regulatory Authority (PMRA) which will serve as a one-window operation for digital, print and electronic media.
“This week we have made some important arrests on the basis that they used social media to issue edicts and advance their extremist narratives and threats,’ he said.
The information minister emphasized that the state would not allow extremists to dictate their narrative by use of force.
‘Only the state has the power to use force or violence. Any individual cannot be allowed to the same,’ the lawmaker observed.
He expressed that the government wanted to build a national and international narrative against extremism adding that Pakistan had managed to rid itself from an ‘irregular conflict’ which was more complicated than ‘regular conflicts’.
“Our problem was that we were engaged in an irregular conflict in Afghanistan. Regular conflicts united nations as it happened in 1965 when the entire country realized that the battle was against India, but in irregular conflicts you do not know the enemy and that creates doubts in minds,” the legislator opined.
The minister highlighted that Pakistan lost 70,000 lives in the conflict but we were not out of it.
Admitting that people have complete right to stick to their opinions and express themselves, the minister asserted that people do not have the right to curb others’ freedom.
‘There is no liberty in the world without an extent. So you cannot infringe my freedom for the sake of your freedom,’ the minister said.
Fawad Chaudhry also thanked traditional media for helping the government curb hate speech.
