Government to Form a Media Regulatory Authority: Fawad Chaudhry

Despite resistance from representatives of opposition parties and media houses, Federal Minister for Information and Broadcasting Fawad Chaudhry has reiterated the government’s desire to establish an authority to regulate social media as well as mainstream media.

According to reports, the Federal Minister, while talking to the representatives of digital media platforms, stated that false, sectarian news and hateful content need to be monitored, and as such, a Pakistan Media Development Authority (PMDA) will be established. “Digital media is our future,” he said.

He said that it is in the public’s interest to regulate digital media to control “abusive, harmful, and hateful” content.

Fawad Chaudhry further said that these days, people are unable to distinguish between true and false news. In 2013, he said, former US President Barack Obama said that the biggest challenge for any government was to control the spread of misinformation. A large number of consumers are shifting to digital media and the landscape of national media will change soon, he said.

The Federal Minister for Information and Broadcasting further said that the recent report of the Digital Media Wing of the Ministry highlighted the “hybrid war” that Pakistan is facing. “It is a reality right in front of us,” he said.

He reminded that when the government launched an operation in Karachi against the banned Tehreek-e-Labaik Pakistan, thousands of tweets were uploaded on Twitter in three hours that civil war had started in the city.

He alleged that India was behind all these tweets.

He also accused India of promoting anti-state rhetoric in Pakistan, during which several tweets were made from India about a sect.

The Federal Minister emphasized that anti-Pakistan elements in India were behind the sectarian strife in Pakistan.

According to him, shortly after becoming Information Minister, he predicted that digital media would replace formal media, which he also criticized.

He said that he had written a letter to the Finance Minister in 2018 that as the advertisements are moving forward, it will be worth around Rs. 12 billion on digital media in the next five years, further saying that in 2018 it was Rs. 4 billion and in just 3 years it has reached Rs. 25 billion.

The Federal Minister said that Google and Facebook are getting about Rs. 7 billion from Pakistan in terms of advertisements, adding that in the next two to three years, formal media advertisements would lag behind while digital media advertisements would advance.

Fawad Chaudhry said that we have to keep an eye on digital media and for that, it is very important to bring it under the purview of the law. 

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