The Pakistan Telecommunications Authority (PTA) has directed internet operators to ensure that users are exposed to ‘unethical’ content after the Supreme Court took notice of ‘objectionable content’ on YouTube and other social media platforms. Or access to illegal content.
In a July 21 letter, the PTA said it had learned that a large amount of unethical content was being provided through content delivery networks (CDNs).
The letter said, “We request you to ensure that no obscene / immoral / illegal content is provided to the users through CDN and a compliance report in this regard is submitted within 10 days of this letter.” Get it done.
The PTA warned that necessary disciplinary action would be taken in case of non-compliance.
Keep in mind that CDN improves the loading speed of a website by presenting content from a location close to the user.
For example, if a user is in Pakistan and tries to access a website in the UK, the transfer usually has to cover a geographical distance each time, which makes it very slow and Expensive so to avoid this slow process a CDN stores a ‘cached’ (copied) version of the website content on a local server in Pakistan.
Most of the web traffic is generated through CDN, which includes traffic from major sites such as Facebook, Netflix, YouTube and Amazon.
This also means that the network must bring about one-third of its content from the original website, but a large part of the connection is not between the user and the platform but between the user and the CDN, which is the content. Serving two-thirds of
However, the PTA said that the filtering mechanism implemented by the authority to curb access to illegal content was ignored due to the inclusion of CDNs.
The PTA said that since CDNs are either placed in a network of operators or CDN connectivity is established through the operators, it is the operator’s responsibility to ensure that its No objectionable content should be offered to users.
At the same time, the PTA pointed out that the authority has been empowered under Section 37 of the Pakistan Electronic Crimes Act (PICA) 2016 to block or remove illegal online content.
Under which the PTA has been asked to provide information related to Pakistan’s defense, dignity of Islam, rude and immoral, fake / defamation, child pornography, decency of an individual, his dignity, contempt of court, public order, hate speech. It also has the power to remove, block or restrict access to content it deems illegal.
Closure of platforms
It may be recalled that the Supreme Court had taken notice of the objectionable material on social media and YouTube and issued notices to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Attorney General.
Justice Qazi Amin, a member of the Judicial Bench, had remarked during the hearing that the Constitution also gives us the right to privacy, an uncle becomes an uncle on YouTube, judges are embarrassed, judiciary, army and government People are incited against.
At the same time, Justice Mushir Alam, a member of the bench, had remarked that anti-US and anti-EU content should be posted on YouTube. In many countries, YouTube is closed. Is.
The PTA did not confirm or deny any such possibility when asked about considering banning YouTube.
According to Google’s Transparency Report for July-December 2019, 16% of the total requests sent to the company for removal of content were related to defamation and 11% related to national security, while 93 of Google platforms were related to ‘religious crimes’. Items were reported.
In addition to fears of a ban on YouTube, social media users were disappointed when the PTA announced a blockade of Bego and issued a final warning to Tik Tak.
In this regard, PTA told Dawn that “Tik Tak and Bego are engaged with the authority on this issue, the platform has been informed about the concerns regarding unethical content and they have come up with an appropriate way to address these concerns.” Working on the car.
However, the PTA did not say whether the decision to block Begum would be reversed and whether Tik Tak would face similar action in the future, despite the court order to ban pubs in Pakistan. ‘Still banned’.
On the other hand, a statement received by Dawn from Tik Tak said that the first priority of the app management is to keep the internal environment of the app safe and positive through compliance with the law.
TickTalk has implemented a number of technologies and innovative strategies for timely identification and review of any inappropriate content so that inappropriate content does not reach consumers.
The statement claimed that any content that violates the TickTock rules, not only that content