Pakistani users are facing difficulties in accessing social media platform X
From a political point of view X is more important so it is being restricted, Fariha Aziz
Has Twitter become such an important platform in Pakistan that public opinion can be influenced by banning it?
A conversation with digital rights experts of the British Broadcasting Corporation BBC
ISLAMABAD ( Web News )
In Pakistan, access to social media platform X has been limited for the last 40 hours. Three days ago, on Saturday evening, Pakistani users started facing difficulties in accessing X, after which Sunday evening partially. Access was restored, which was restricted once again on Monday morning. Now the situation is that social media users in the country are not able to use X. According to a report by the British broadcaster BBC about Pakistan. It is generally believed that most of the social media users here are on platforms like Facebook and Tik Tok and only a certain segment exists on X and expresses their opinion. So in this situation when X There are more popular platforms out there than why X is facing outages? And has Twitter become such an important platform in Pakistan that public opinion can be influenced by banning it? BBC has talked to digital rights experts in this regard. Fariha Aziz, co-founder of Bolo Bhi, a digital rights organization in Pakistan, said while talking to BBC about how many Pakistani users used this platform. Regardless of this, the importance of this platform is more because the power play is going on in our country at the moment and all the important personalities of the world from state institutions, political parties and journalists are present on X. They say that Of course, Facebook and Tik Tok have become widely used platforms and are well received by users in Pakistan, but from a political point of view, X is more important, so it is being restricted because the information shared here are made, narratives are created, people around the world immediately notice them. From candidates to ordinary people, election-related forms and other information are being shared on SubX, from political discourse to brainstorming. Happening on Sub X. This is not the first time that social media users in Pakistan have faced outages or difficulties in accessing the Internet or social media platforms, recently during the elections on February 8, the government sided with the government. has suspended mobile and data services. Since May 9 last year, there have been many complaints from the government about difficulties in accessing the Internet or social media. Fareeha says that the government has often made the internet slow before. or restrict access to other platforms, but the source of global headlines is often Twitter itself, where candidates and political parties share their information from verified accounts. Afraid of? In this regard, Fariha says that the same political parties also use the same platform for their own interests. However, they said that despite this, when the political parties come into government, they impose PICA and other such laws. The aim of which is allegedly to suppress opinions. Fareeha says that the state imposes restrictions, but political parties do the same after gaining power. Expressing concerns about the future, Fareeha says. That the last two governments have been raising the slogan of Digital Pakistan, but if services continue to be shut down and access to the Internet is restricted, no investors will come here and the country will not be seen as a serious digital market. It should be remembered that the closure of X came at a time when the allegations of alleged rigging in the election by Rawalpindi Commissioner Liaquat Ali Chatta came to light. Allegations of allegedly changing the results and rigging the PML-N candidates were made. However, the Election Commission has denied these allegations and has formed a high-level inquiry committee on the matter. When asked, the spokesman of PTA said that X was closed across the country on the orders of the Ministry of Interior. has issued a statement in this regard. As soon as partial access to X began on Sunday evening, social media users in their comments criticized the government’s initiative, calling it a violation of the right to access to information and freedom of expression. A social media The user wrote about what kind of country this is where a major social media platform is shut down for no reason and people can’t do anything about it. Its purpose is only to suppress the voice of the people, to hide the facts from them. This state is a joke. A user named Huda wrote that Pakistan needs Starlink, we deserve better than social media shutdown and internet censorship. Criticizing Information Technology Umar Saif wrote that X was down across Pakistan for almost 24 hours, and access was possible through VPN, while several users complained that their VPN was also down and Internet is also slow but till now not a word from PTA officials or Umar Saif. It is their job to make internet access possible in the country. This is shameful. Another social media user criticized the government’s move and wrote that Tesla is coming to India too soon, more than 4500 IT companies are working in Bangladesh, Sri Lanka’s IT industry is the country’s economy. It contributes about 1.2 billion dollars in Pakistan while in Pakistan we are still using VPN because the government shuts down social media. How long will Pakistan tolerate this? After the government restricted access to X, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf leader Ali Muhammad Khan also condemned it, calling it a violation of the constitutional rights of Pakistani citizens. Commenting on it, he wrote that it is wrong to shut down X, access to information or freedom of expression are constitutional rights, the government must explain this and stop serious violations of constitutional rights of citizens and political activists Another user wrote in a sarcastic manner that the situation of Twitter in Pakistan has become like electricity when the heart wants to turn off Twitter. Use PN.