Pakistan bans 100 social media accounts for promoting 'anti-state' content

Pakistan has blocked as many as 100 social media accounts for pushing out sectarian, anti-state, terrorist and anti-Islamic posts.

The Federal Investigation Agency has blocked 106 social media accounts on platforms like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, the police told Dawn.

The step was taken in response to the findings of the Provisional of Violent Extremism Unit (PVE) of the capital police’s Counterterrorism Department (CTD).

So far, the unit has authorised blocking a total number of 203 accounts, 164 of which are on Twitter, 38 on Facebook and one on YouTube. Out of these, 106 have been already blocked.

The Counterterrorism Department of Pakistan made several requests to the FIA for the closure of the accounts in question. They also provided the details of these accounts, along with screenshots of illegal activities.

According to a recent report by The Express Tribune, the Pakistani government is currently working on a way to compel social media platforms to register themselves in Pakistan.

Pakistan Peoples Party Senator Rubina Khalid has said that the government appeared to be helpless on the issue of blasphemous and derogatory content on the internet.

She added that the matter had been taken up several times during the meetings of the Senate Standing Committee on Information Technology and it was the responsibility of the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) to take action against such content.

Minister of State for Law and Justice Shahadat Awan replied that online hate speech against any religion would be blocked immediately.

With inputs from ANI

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