A new study by a media start-up ‘TrustLab’ has revealed that X, formerly known as Twitter, was the biggest source of disinformation. The study is carried out by the European Commission which took a sample of six social media apps, including Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, TikTok, X, and YouTube. Although the study was limited to Spain, Poland, and Slovakia, it has global ramifications for X users and its impact on policymakers. X had signed a voluntary code in 2018. The 2018 Code of Practice on disinformation is the first time worldwide that the industry has agreed, on a voluntary basis, to self-regulatory standards to fight disinformation. However, X got out of the code when Elon Musk took over the company.
According to a study by bankmycell.com, X has 450 million active users in 2022 and the platform’s audience has increased by 40% since 2018. Despite getting out of the code of ethics, X has postulated its own code of ethics which is readily available on the website of X. It has not gone well the policy circles of the EU. Giving a response to the TrustLab report, the EU’s Values and Transparency Commissioner Vera Jourova warned, “My message for [X] is: you have to comply with the hard law. We’ll be watching what you’re doing”. As the commission has Digital Service Act in place to deter the fake news and disinformation, EU is considering to change the voluntary code into a code of conduct for compliance.
The EU has been on the forefront of fighting hate speech and fake news. The recent steps by the organization are preliminary steps to law based international digital order amid growing influence of social and digital media beyond the legal ambit. In June 2023, X announced that it would be abiding by the EU disinformation laws after mounting pressure from the MPs of EU parliament. This indicates that international corporations and non-state actors including social media giants have to abide by the international norms to maintain the international order.
In 2022, foreign tech giants including Google, Facebook and X rebelled against Pakistan and threatened the government to leave the country leaving 100 million users at the mercy of ‘no internet accesses’. The companies were asked to open their offices in Pakistan and set up servers to store data in the country. The tech companies were reluctant “because Pakistan does not have any law of data protection, international internet firms are reluctant to comply with the rules”. This prompted Pakistani authorities to introduce new laws for online content.
As the X has been on the forefront of fake news and propaganda in Pakistan, a major share of political polarization in Pakistan goes to X wherein fake accounts and algorithmic trending has badly shaped the public opinion away from grounded reality. Amid the information crisis, Pakistan introduced new laws in 2021 namely “Removal and Blocking of Unlawful Online Content (Procedure, Oversight and Safeguards) Rules 2021′, known as RBUOC Rules. Although the international media watchdogs have termed these rules as a ‘curb against free speech’, in reality, the rules are safety measures to protect the public from hate speech and fake news.
The new law in Pakistan is in line with the actions taken by other governments including China, India, Turkey, EU and the U.S. Pakistan has been at the cusp of vulnerability of losing the tech war against non-state actors. The outgoing decade witnessed a surge of terrorism in Pakistan, coinciding with exponential growth in the use of smart technologies by citizens. This necessitated security agencies to gain access to smartphone devices to track and trace incidents of terrorism, individuals and organizations involved in such activities. These Rules mandate the government to take off-air, within 48 hours of the complaint received, any online content which is likely to jeopardize defense and security of the country, public order, decency and morality, glory of Islam and any material contemptuous to the dignity of superior courts.
New laws have empowered Pakistan to regulate the online content. In 2021, Pakistan asked Twitter to remove over 10,000 Twitter accounts. The decision to write to the X authorities was taken after EU Disinfo Lab report on Indian Chronicles indicated a heap of hate speech and propaganda by the social media platforms. Ironically, a major portion of these accounts were either run from India or by the Indians backed by the Indian embassies and missions in western corridors. However, it did not deter the fake news as the regulations were only meant for the social media companies without any indication that how the perpetrators of that content will be dealt.
In 2022, President of Pakistan approved an ordinance namely the Prevention of Electronic Crimes Act which has not been well received by the human rights bodies. Human Rights Watch termed the law as ‘draconian’ whereas Amnesty International showed its concerns calling the measures as an act of curbing the free speech. International human rights bodies have been mulling Pakistan as a state standing at loggers head with human rights bodies. However, Pakistan’s legal measures to curb the hate speech and fake news stand vindicated by the international standards and ongoing global fight against fake news.
