ISLAMABAD — Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) has blocked around824,878 URLs under Prevention of Electronic Crimes Act (PECA).
The Authority received complaints against unlawful online content includinganti-state, anti-judiciary, blasphemy etc. and to handle this giganticrole, has established the Cyber Vigilance Division (CVD).
According to PTA’s annual report 2018, a Standard Operating Procedure (SoP)for lodging complaints and their disposal has been developed accordinglyand all such contents which are hosted on unsecured websites are beingcurrently handled through telecom operators of Pakistan and same would bedone by PTA itself through an automated system in future.
On the contrary, any content which is unlawful and hosted on the securedwebsite is handled differently. The popular social media websites likefacebook, youtube, and twitter etc. are a few examples of secured websiteswhich are hosted outside of physical boundaries of Pakistan.
In this regard, PTA has developed close liaison with all such platforms tohonour requests made for the removal of such content.
Read Top Stories
It is pertinent to mention that users of social media must act responsiblywhile using and accessing such platforms and should honour norms of societyand laws of the land. In the case of objectionable content is observed byany user, these platforms are open to receive complaints from valuableusers directly.
Relatively high value is given to complainant/users who report to platformsany objectionable material directly. Those complaints which are notaddressed by these platforms in the first instance can be reported to PTAat info@pta.gov.pk for escalating the matter. It is mentioned here thathistorically and predominantly, PTA has been acting under functions andpowers given by Pakistan Telecom (Re-organization) Act, 1996.
