Unlike UK, Pakistan struggles to curb fake news

ISLAMABAD: As against Britain where prompt action was taken against those who spread misinformation that caused riots in England and Northern Ireland earlier this month, Pakistan is still struggling to tackle the issue of fake news and its serious fallouts for both the country and the society.

In Pakistan, fake news trend is on a spike whether it is about international, religious or political affairs. However, the country continues to fail in dealing with this menace.

Interestingly, the day before the acquittal of the journalist who was accused of spreading misinformation in the UK which caused unrest, a top police official in Pakistan confirmed the Lahore based journalist’s involvement.

It is pertinent to mention here that that numerous cases of hate speech or defamation — where both parties (respondent and defendant) were from Pakistan — were resolved by UK’s judicial system. Nasir Butt who belongs to PMLN won a case against a private news channel of Pakistan and Zulfi Bukhari won against Reham Khan in UK’s courts. Both the defendants were heavily fined.

More Importantly, this correspondent also went through dozens of cases of fake news filed in courts against national Newspapers and Television News Channels years ago which are still ongoing.

Investigations by The News revealed that a total of 94 Show Cause Notices have been issued to the mainstream television news channels of Pakistan for spreading fake news by Pakistan Electronic Media Regulation Authority (PEMRA) in the past five years.

Since January, the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) has removed/blocked over 44,000 social media accounts or posts from Facebook, Twitter and YouTube for spreading fake news. A total of 20,829 unlawful Facebook posts and accounts have been removed or blocked from the said platform by PTA. From YouTube, a total of 12,776 posts, videos or YouTube accounts have been blocked or removed by PTA during this time. Whereas from Twitter, a total of 10,813 twitter posts or accounts were blocked or completely removed from the platform during January 2023 till this date. However, no action against those who spread misinformation on social media.

Interestingly, a total of 61 posts based on fake news were made by an official account of a major political party in just one month-July 2024, data fetched by authorities unfolded.

Interestingly, Editor-in-Chief and CEO of Jang/Geo Group Mir Shakil-ur-Rehman has filed thousands of complaints of defamation with the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA). However, only 84 complaints could reach the first step — verification process — while no complaint has been resolved till date. Whereas, court orders for only 23 of them have so far been sent to Twitter & Facebook. No action was taken on the complaints against even the known personalities who defamed the group and its Editor-in-Chief and CEO despite several meetings and reminders, Jang/Geo group’s spokesperson told this correspondent.

“Fake news in Pakistan is not rightly dealt due to problems in our Judicial System, investigating Agencies and at times lack of competence of the prosecutors”, admitted Mansoor Awan, the Attorney General of Pakistan, while talking to The News. “The courts such as in the UK have very higher benchmarks and the UK’s cyberspace capacity building along with cyberspace laws that are highly effective as compared to Pakistan”, he said. Mansoor Awan assured The News of sharing his detailed response on the issue of fake news but despite repeated attempts, the AGP did not respond afterwards.

Talking to The News, Amir Abdullah Abbasi, advocate in Islamabad High Court said, “Fake news in Pakistan is seriously hurting but unfortunately this menace is not countered mainly because of ineffective laws and its implementations in letter and spirit”.

The News looked into some widely circulated fake news stories on social media where not a single person was held accountable.

One of the most trending fake news stories was about a federal minister who was accused of threatening Israel with a nuke attack. The minister himself as well the Foreign Office had to intervene that the story, which was posted on facebook, was fake.

Another fake news story stated that the PTI government and Israeli state have signed an agreement to address water scarcity in Pakistan. It further said that the Israeli Prime Minister has visited Pakistan several times and assured of all types of support if Pakistan agrees to accept the Israeli state. This fake news, which was also busted by the Foreign Office, went viral and earned a lot of criticism for the PTI-led government.

Another was about the photoshopped picture of Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi who got a standing ovation at the United Nations. The fake news story said that the whole world was happy with the outcome of Pakistani elections. This news story was busted by The News, which showed it was a photoshopped image replacing the Turkish Prime Minister.

Fake news story about a purported research study that ‘Pakistan is three-times more dangerous to humanity than Syria’. This fake story also got a huge number of sharing only to be busted by daily Dawn that no such study has been conducted by University of Oxford. This fake story started a verbal battle between the troll-followers of Pakistan and India.

Among fake news regarding key politicians, one was about a key politicians to have stashed billions of dollars to India to weaken Pakistan. The story went viral and caused a verbal battle between the supporters of two main parties in Pakistan. The story was busted by The News quoting finance ministry sources that the politician had no business in India.

Another widely circulated fake news was against a top political leader who has spent five million rupees on breakfast on a daily basis. The story was later retreated but was heavily shared by the political opponents for political gains. Yet another fake news was about a federal minister who was accused of having got funds from the UK government to promote homosexuality in Pakistan. This unfounded story got a voluminous posts and tweets where the character and personal life of the minister were discussed, criticised and ridiculed.

A fake news story about the extension of a judge prompted him to declare that he was not interested in extension. This story was massively shared and commented upon.

Fake news included a news story with a photoshopped picture of a meeting between the prime minister and the chief justice of Pakistan. The caption said that the meeting was arranged to reverse the death sentence of a blasphemy convict. This story got a huge online activity where the supporters and critics exchanged heated debates and accused each other of tarnishing the true image of Islam. Both the judiciary and the PM office had to intervene to debunk that no such meeting had taken place.