Tic, toc, toc

In 1901 Benjamin Rowntree, a pioneering poverty researcher who was vehemently opposed to alcoholic beverages, went about on a tour of public houses in York, England – public houses being a euphemism for pubs where blue collar workers would drink and dance after work hours. The purpose of his tour was to find out why did people of low-income choose to spend their precious time and money on alcohol when they had so many other pressing needs.

His memoirs suggest that he was rather appalled by the vulgarity found in those pubs where every man and woman was drinking and almost everyone was smoking. But he also noted that “throughout the whole assembly there is an air of jollity and absence of irksome restraint which must prove very attractive after a day of confinement in factory or shop”. The social attractiveness of those public houses forced Rowntree to conclude that champions of public morality must offer something at least equally attractive to the public.

Much time has passed since. But given increasing cost of regulation, mushrooming growth of technology, which governments such as Pakistan can’t keep pace with, and the underappreciated social and economic benefits of what seems to be frivolous media and technology - begs Islamabad to consider Rowntree’s wisdom in the case of ban on TikTok, YouTube and other social media platforms.

Technology will keep on marching as will the ‘gale of creative destruction’. Very few countries have the capacity to have their cake and eat it too; China being the most conspicuous exception when it comes to regulating technology to the degree Islamabad apparently aspires to do. But Pakistan is not China. When it becomes China and can afford to have its own ecosystem including its very own very skilled and educated population, then ‘perhaps’ one can think about protecting the culture. At the moment, it is simply not practical.

This is not to advocate vulgarity, albeit the subjectivity of vulgarity is a related but separate discussion, one that is beyond the scope of economic discourse in Pakistan; imagine if the central bank or Pakistan Bureau of Statistics come with Pakistani equivalent of the once controversial Hemline Index! But this is to advocate the need to focus on other far more pressing needs, some even the kinds that may prove as attractive to the public.

How fruitful would it be if instead of focusing their energies on what to ban and not, public institutions were to use social media influencers to train Pakistan’s youth, of which a huge lot won’t ever get to see school, and therefore learning through technology, internet, and social media may be the last hope. The idea is to create a different attraction – one that enhances their skills and aspires youth to contribute to society, to pursue their passion, to invent, and to explore businesses.

Sports; travel; physical fitness; cooking; life skills; music; civic education; growth mindset; photography; online education on stock trading; become a supplier to Amazon or Ali Baba – these are the kind of attractions that can potentially compete with what Islamabad fears. Might one remind that even with all the bans and moral policing, pornography is still one of the most searched subjects on the web in Pakistan. Beat that! Would Islamabad also ban internet because escorts services are running their business online?

The degree to which people believe that TikTok, YouTube, and other social media can and will contribute to economic growth and development depends on how much history they have read; how much foresight they have; and perhaps how old they are.

But consider this: thousands of years before today different cultures had different types of knives and cooking styles; people across cultures did not know about it as much because information and goods did not flow as fast and as frequently as it does today. Today, it’s quite possible that through her fan following at a social media platform someone could both learn and share a craft or product, create a business, help other businesses grow, perhaps even prosper in overseas markets or land a job by showcasing her skills. There are scores of real-life examples that are a testimony to these possibilities, in Pakistan and abroad.

Most white-haired parents and their counterparts that populate leadership positions in federal and provincial governments in Pakistan might find it hard to believe that many people earn substantially as YouTubers. Likewise, there is a growing trend towards boutique pastry chefs, calisthenic instructors, Keto diet specialists, etc in Pakistan who learned their craft through social media, and now form the new face of service industry – a face that did not exist a decade ago.

Halting the printing press of our times is not an option. Instead, Islamabad needs to understand the effects of new technologies and how will it change domestic economy and external trade in the future, for it is increasingly becoming clear that technology is rapidly moving in a way that will make several traditional jobs obsolete. That - should be the bigger worry than protecting the past that culture oft represents.

The time is not far when millions of Pakistanis will have to transition to new livelihood skills, which demands proactive public and private investment in training a more diverse and agile learners who can sell their talent at home and abroad. This should be Islamabad’s primary concern vis-à-vis technology and social media, a concern that is evidently missing.

There are no off-the-shelf solutions for that since it is an evolving situation. But policy wonks and economic observers must keep a keen eye on the situation and decide based on what is best supported by available evidence at different points in time.