Vulnerable Digital Pakistan

Most of the time when we are reading the newspaper or are watching some talk show, we are always forced to count the problems that are faced by Pakistan. The anchor or “responsible” guests never speak for the solutions to these problems. Not only this, when someone is about to name a responsible for trouble, we listen the words “off air btaun ga”

 Among the many problems, year 2011 came up with a big issue and its solution. A youth campaign was raised by Pukary Pakistan, the parent organization of Intellect Pakistan, demanding a complete ban on the obnoxious content over the internet.

The youth campaign was supported by Supreme Court which issued orders to Pakistan Telecommunication Authority for banning the obnoxious content, but failing to fulfill the orders, PTA asked the youth to report sites to get banned. On this, the intellectual youth managed to provide PTA with 780K obnoxious sites to get them banned and after this, PTA backed from its statement to ban the sites.

The only requirement to ban pornographic websites is a “Centralized URL Filtration System”. On February, 2012, Ministry of Information Technology issued a “bid tender” for “National Level URL Filtration System” that could ban as many as 50 million URLs at millisecond delay just like filtration being done in China, UAE, Saudi Arabia and several other countries. Adding to the fortune, ICT R&D fund approved to sponsor this project. ICT R&D Fund is public-private partnership institute where all the Telecom Companies submit their 0.25% of annual income, and the collected amount is used for research purposes.

Even after all the satisfactory conditions, later, the than Secretary IT Mr. Farooq Awan issued orders to withdraw the project. The reason was quite obvious, the secular “Beghairat Brigade” was against this filtration system. These free speech activists called all the lies that a “Pharoic” person can. These “IT illiterate” activists were supported by P@SHA as well as very traitor media organization South Asian Free Media Association (SAFMA).

Sana Saleem in brown dress along with Google Chairman Eric Schmidt are seen in this picture.

It was evident from the very beginning that only “porn investors” in Pakistan were against the Filtration System as this system can demolish their complete investments.  Not only this, the international owners of said industry were also worried about this situation. Among the 30 million users about 20-25 % is visiting pornographic pages. If this huge traffic is removed, that it will definitely cause great setback to the industry which is majorly based on advertising income. It was also when Google Chairman “Eric Schmidt” visited Pakistan on a two day “Secret Visit” and met with representatives or Bolo Bhi, Pakistan Software House Association (P@SHA) and other Secular activists of the country.

For the URL Filtration System, all the concerned bodies i.e. PTA, Ministry of IT, Prime Minister Raja Pervaiz Ashraf and President of Pakistan Asif Ali Zardari have issued green signal. Previous Chairman PTA Mohammad Yaseen several times told project members that the Filtration System would be installed in few months, but now, its more than one complete year passed for an approved project which also don’t have funding issues with it as the project is sponsored by private sector and will not place any pressure on national economy.

Not only pornographic ban, the URL Filtration System is must for the state in the situation when Google has denied to provide suspected user information to Pakistani Security institutes which result in terrorist attacks in the country. From past few years, the major social networking sites which include Facebook, twitter and Youtube have been found violating their own TOS as they have denied to remove the blasphemy content which was creating hatred among the Muslim community all around the world. Although Youtube has been banned but still there is no proper check and balance system.

Identifying the responsible for the delay of URL filtration system, the biggest resistance was made by Sana Saleem who is also enlisted as 100 global thinkers for anti-Pakistan Ideology activism. All the justifications the “Beghairat Brigade” was making for the anti-filtration system were based on lies. Just like the tweet that was made by Tazeen, a writer at Express Tribune:

Let us ask her, if filtration system slows down the internet speed, than what about China, UAE and other several developed countries having filtration system installed? What about the innocent children that are being morally destroyed by the obnoxious sites? What about the terrorist attacks that are unidentified due to little information?

In this age, when our country is facing several problems, a URL Filtration System is must for the country. The concerned institutes must look for all the possible measures to ensure the installment of Filtration System. So that our young generation will have the safest use of internet and this powerful technology will only be used for progressive works.