- The source privy to the development say that a summary is yet to approved in the second attempt of the incumbent government to protect the state institutions, especially the army from social media campaigns.
Islamabad: The federal government made another attempt to protect Pakistan Army from social media campaign as it is planning to set up a special task force to have a check on the social media, the latest reports said on Friday.
The source privy to the development said, “A summary to establish the task force is yet to be approved,”. They said that it was nothing but a proposal so far.
The task force being proposed, they said, would be comprising officers from different institutions including Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA), Federal Investigation Agency and National Database and Registration Authority (NADRA).
They said that the police and other law enforcement would also provide assistance to the task force to have a check on the social media and chalk out plans to stop anti-army campaigns.
The development came to the limelight after the coalition government and especially Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif accused PTI of running smear campaign against Pakistan army.
The latest reports suggested that several social media accounts allegedly involved in running anti-state campaigns, especially against the Pakistan army have been detected. The reports say that around three dozens of Twitter accounts and more than 50 Facebook accounts and pages besides a few Tiktok accounts have been traced by the relevant authorities in this regard.
The proposal for establishing the task force is the latest attempt of the government to control anti-army social media campaigns.
A bill proposing action against the social media users for anti-state campaigns was presented before the parliament earlier this year in February but there were differences among the members of the legislature.
The lawmakers had made different observations regarding the bill as some were of the view that the strict action should be taken against those who were targeting the parliamentarians while many others said that the strict punishment would affect the freedom of expression.
Interestingly, the lawmakers had debated that there should be a separate provision for protection of the judiciary and the armed forces from the social media campaigns despite that there had been Section 500 in Pakistan Penal Code.
