Pakistan making laws to bring social media giants under ambit

• The laws once enacted would aid in making social media websites follow local rules and regulations.
• The new laws will also help us bring social media platforms within the ambit of taxation

The government is in process of making new rules for the social media companies such as Twitter and Facebook, which would not only bring them under the ambit of local rules but also under tax net.

“The draft bill is currently being vetted by the Ministry of Law,” said Dr. Arslan Khalid, Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan’s focal person on digital media, quoted Arab News.

The focal person informed that the laws once enacted would aid in making social media websites follow local rules and regulations, and was optimistic that the upcoming laws would come into force soon. “The new laws will also help us bring social media platforms within the ambit of taxation,” Khalid said.

Pakistan faced a number of legal challenges while negotiating with the micro-blogging websites involving removal of offensive content and restoration of suspended accounts of hundreds of Pakistani users.

Just days ago it emerged that Twitter has suspended many accounts of Pakistani users without assigning any reasons and prior notice. The spokesperson of Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) reacted upon the action saying that the latest step of the Twitter administration was against the principles of freedom of expression.

The authority asked social media consumers to report the complaints regarding the suspension of their accounts on its official website, [email protected]. The spokesperson added that PTA will raise the matter for the accounts’ suspension with the Twitter administration soon.

Last month it was learnt that the government is planning to ban social networking websites such as Twitter, WhatsApp, Facebook and YouTube in the government offices owing to increased risk of important data leak.

The National Information Technology Board is working on a framework and has recommended the government to ban social networking websites in the government offices.

According to the proposed framework, a new communication system in the lines of WhatsApp would be introduced for the federal government employees as most of the intra-government communication is being done through WhatsApp which increases the risk of important data leak.