DND Report
Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) Senator Irfan Siddiqui who is considered one of the best political negotiators and intellectuals of PMLN on Tuesday said that the Prevention of Electronic Crimes (PECA) Act was not sacred and amendments could be made.
He added that journalist organizations should submit a draft of the proposed changes and he could play a role in incorporating suggestions into new amendments. Strangely he was very much present in the Senate when his party passed this bill from the Senate after passing through from the National Assembly. If he could consider this Bill inappropriate, he could play his role within the party to block this bill. Moreover, in private talks, PMLN legislators are indicating that the Bill can be further amended if not accepted by the media groups.
This is a strange situation indeed that ownership of the party is lagging in the case of a very grave issue of the country and that is digital terrorism and Fake News and of course, fake news is being used to establish false narratives against state institutions.
Academicians, experts in Philosophy of Communication, and media experts believe that the government this time should not bow down to pressure coming from powerful media groups and the government should think about the country instead of its political gains.
Prof Dr. Akhtar Hussain Sandhu the Principal of Govt Islamia College Civil Lines Lahore believes that if the state of Pakistan being a nuclear state deals with global powers and decides whatever is in the interest of Pakistan then why does the same state usually succumbs to power groups such as media owners?
He is of the opinion that whenever the government tries to amend media laws, media outlets reject them and then the state usually accepts the pressure of media owners. It is a grave concern that the Parliament that passes laws bows down to manipulating groups.
Prof Dr. Akhtar Hussain Sandhu further added that comprosing to media groups would send a loud and clear message to the public that in Pakistan everybody can twist the nose of the state if it has powerful groups behind it. “Governments do not reverse strategic decisions unless they are from weaker countries”, he commented.
Academician, scholar, and author Shazia Anwer Cheema while commenting on the situation stated that throughout the world, laws exist to control defamation, false narrative building against the state, and digital terrorism and 25 out of 28 countries of the European Union deal insult and defamation as Criminal offense not as a Civil Offense. However, in Pakistan, any attempt of the state to control the menace of digital terrorism is always rejected by media rights organizations that have miserably failed to execute self-accountability and to snub those who had been minting money through yellow journalism.
Related Story: Media rights organizations do not have a moral right to reject the PECA Act
She was of the view that the accountability of those who use yellow journalism as their bread and butter was the responsibility of media watch and media rights organizations but this responsibility was never taken by media groups and media rights organizations. She stated that the response to the PECA Amendment Bill of the joint action committee, comprising the Pakistan Federal Union of Journalists (PFUJ), All Pakistan Newspapers Society (APNS), Council of Pakistan Newspaper Editors (CPNE), Association of Electronic Media Editors and News Directors (AMEND), and the Pakistan Broadcasters Association (PBA) was unjustified and contrary to international standards of media rights.
She claimed that the unchecked flow of fabricated content that is already available not only in social media but in mainstream media outlets has been harming the social fabric of Pakistan and compromising national security. She was of the view that anti-state elements always use verificatory news because it provides a margin for extensive anti-subject debate and does not bear the burden of verifiability. They create filter bubbles and echo chambers that are based on the idea of the post-truth era. The concept of post-truth has been on the Western agenda and has been used for creating color revolutions in Eastern Europe as well as in the Middle East and the same has been used against Pakistan as a kind of digital terrorism.
Prof Dr Taimoor ul Hassan who is the former Dean of the Mass Communication Faculty at BNU and UCP and has been a working journalist in the past, believes that there is no unchecked, unrestricted freedom of expression anywhere in the world, starting from Commonwealth, EU to United Nations Declaration Human Rights clause related to freedom of expression. Pakistan’s Article 19 also has certain conditions attached to freedom of expression on the top of which is national security. “When there was the institution of gatekeeping in professional media outlets and investigative stories were properly verified from multiple sources, journalism stayed as a noble profession within the Social Responsibility Theory of Media, but with crass commercialization of the media working for specific agendas and getting profits from the government, corporate sector, undercover agencies, and political parties, journalism declined” commented Dr Taimoor.
He believes that the television channels opened by property dealers for money laundering purposes further ruined the concept of verifiable content, giving enormous space to talk shows to lift TV ratings through a few thousand meters. Print journalists started losing jobs while TV journalists gave way to parachute news talk hosts, consumed by commercialism and political agendas.
Dr Taimoor was of the view that The act by the government is an effort to bring into control the no-holds-barred YouTubers, trollers, and fake news communicators for money making, turning society into a frenzy. If the traditional media had performed and journalists stayed the course of credible journalism, things would have been different.
This is the foremost obligation of responsible journalism to protect the facts and follow media ethics and if the media is following ethical journalism then it should not be worried about laws that are introduced to mitigate yellow journalism and fake news. Moreover, the government should show that it has a spine to protect the state from the media mafia and must not bow down to media groups. PECA is facing opposition but it was a much-anticipated action by the government in the wake of social media going on the rampage. The sustainable solution, however, lies in bringing back the nobility of the profession through credible journalism, high-quality journalism, and massive media literacy.
