he Prevention of Electronic Crimes (Amendment) Act, 2025, has been in the news given the troubling changes made to an already oppressive law. The Prevention of Electronic Crimes Act, passed in 2016, criminalised several facets of speech in digital spaces that have resulted in the weaponisation of a vague and sweeping law—a weaponisation ensured by the very design of the law. The latest amendment to the Act, passed within a week of the draft of the law having been made public, has rightly been condemned for including new criminal offences such as false and fake information in the toolkit of the government to clamp down on the right to freedom of expression. Another important facet, overlooked in the wider conversations about the amendment, has been its ambitions to regulate social media companies.

The definition of social media platforms introduced by the amendment is exceedingly wide. Organisations such as the Digital Rights Foundation have pointed out that the definition could be interpreted to include VPNs, websites or apps for commercial or promotional purposes where users have created accounts, and “communication channels” such as messaging applications WhatsApp and Signal. This wide definition is worrying given the powers of the newly created Social Media Protection and Regulatory Authority to “enlist” social media platforms under “manner, form and payment of fee.” No clarity has been provided on the scope of this enlistment, however. The government has left open the door to require social media platforms to register with the Pakistani government—a move that was resisted by social media platforms when proposed under the Removal and Blocking of Unlawful Online Content (Procedure, Oversight and Safeguards), Rules 2021. This amendment continues to view global social media platforms as entities to be controlled and regulated under national laws, rather than investing in mechanisms for meaningful accountability of these platforms. While the amendment does not require platforms to register offices within Pakistan, the vague language on enlistment allows the authority to issue directives to that effect in the future.

While provisions requiring social media platforms to “maintain an effective and transparent procedure for handling complaints about unlawful and offensive online content” can be read as user-centric, the expansive definition of unlawful and offensive online content affords an insight into the intention of these reporting mechanisms. A wide range of content has been defined as unlawful and offensive, well beyond the exceptions to freedom of expression provided under Article 19 of the constitution. This now includes any content “against [the] ideology of Pakistan;” any material “known to be false or fake;” or content that “contains aspersions against any person, including members of the judiciary, armed forces, Majlis-i-Shoora or a Provincial Assembly.” Best practices for restrictions on freedom of expression mandate that any restriction must conform to the strict tests of necessity and proportionality. This amendment, on the other hand, further widens the range of content that the government can block and remove, without the necessary safeguards for ensuring the law is not used to clamp down on legitimate online criticism and dissent.

It is important to separate this amendment from the calls from across the world to rein in the unchecked and monopolistic powers of social media platforms. While there is no doubt that these platforms are unaccountable to users and make undemocratic and arbitrary determinations regarding speech, the shift that places power into the hands of the state to make these decisions regarding what we can and cannot say, share or access on the internet is not a move towards accountability—it is censorship. Additionally, the government seeks to regulate and control social media platforms the same way it does content in print and television, while fundamentally misunderstanding the unique nature of the medium it is dealing with. Platforms need to be made more transparent, responsive to users’ needs and uphold rights such as privacy and expression, but very few would argue that this is the intention of the amendment.

The amendment as a whole is ill thought through. The sections relating to social media platforms and their obligations wilfully misinterpret critiques of big tech and their platforms. Further, the vague requirement for enlistment would prove to be either unworkable as platforms refuse to “enlist” inside Pakistan or become the justification for wholesale and selective bans on social media platforms in the name of non-compliance. This has been seen in the ongoing ban on X (formerly, Twitter), and the platform-wide bans that came before it, where the government is empowered to place blanket bans on platforms for so-called non-compliance with local laws. The ever-present possibility for penalisation of platforms could also lead to over-compliance by platforms to pre-empt any drastic action under the Act. The net effect of all this will be a less free and less user-centred internet.

The writer is a researcher and campaigner on human and digital rights issues