The Pakistan Telecommunications Authority (PTA) has called on social networking site Twitter to take immediate action against accounts that spread false information against Pakistan.
According to a statement issued by PTA, the authority has asked the Twitter administration to immediately mobilize its content moderation teams to ensure that the platform is a propaganda tool for spreading misinformation. Do not use as
Press Release: PTA has approached Twitter administration to immediately sensitize its moderation teams and ensure that the platform is not used as a propaganda tool for spreading fake information. pic.twitter.com/tp7APt6bEB
— PTA (@PTAofficialpk) October 22, 2020
The statement said that in the context of the current campaign to spread false and baseless information targeting Pakistan, its cities and institutions, the PTA has urged Twitter to effectively block the handlers involved in the campaign. ۔
The authority said it was "disappointed" that the spread of unsubstantiated information included verified Twitter accounts, but that it was still operating with an exception.
The PTA has asked the platform to take action against such accounts in accordance with its principles and policies.
Earlier, government ministers pointed out the ridiculous claims of the Indian media and demanded that the Twitter administration take notice, saying that a "civil war" had broken out in Karachi.
Federal Minister for Human Rights Shirin Mazari said that it was unfortunate that Twitter was "deliberately" ignoring the false news about Pakistan in the Indian media.
Federal Minister Ali Zaidi said that the propaganda of Indian media was at its peak and the PDM had added fuel to this 'circus'.
On the other hand, the Foreign Office spokesperson also took notice of the "malicious and fabricated news and propaganda campaign" in the Indian media.
Addressing a weekly press briefing, the Foreign Office spokesperson said, "Such efforts by the Indian media at the behest of Pakistan's insane BJP-RSS government reflect a specific and well-known mindset." '
It should be noted that on various occasions in the past, Pakistan has been demanding from Twitter to remove the material that spreads false information against the country.
Since the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) came to power, there has been a sharp increase in requests from the government to remove the material.
The Transparency Report released by Twitter in November 2019 states that between January 2019 and June 2019, the government sent 273 requests for content removal and reported 1,798 profiles to Twitter, down from 2,300. But there was an increase in requests for account information.
Twitter did not completely delete any of the accounts, but some of the content of 234 accounts was removed for violating Twitter's terms of reference.
Earlier, in July-December 2018, Twitter removed the content of 204 accounts.
In the last six months of the year, 192 such petitions were filed by the government and law enforcement agencies, while one petition was sent through a court order.
According to a semi-annual transparency report released in early September this year, the micro-blogging website has started processing requests from Pakistan for deleting content, which did not happen last year.
No legal request was made to remove the content by a court order between July and December 2019, but Twitter said it complied with a 35.2% compliance rate during that period.
