There is no consideration for appointing top bureaucrats of the information ministry as the head of the proposed body and introducing criminal liability for any violations.
Presently, more than half a dozen outdated laws and sets of rules are being implemented through multiple bodies to regulate media that do not match with the modern-day requirements of “converged media.” Therefore, in the public interest, as in other developed countries, we need to introduce holistic policy responses to the challenges of fake news, disinformation, hate speech, abusive content, privacy issues and copyright violations in the emerging information communication technologies.
Hence, as per global best practices, an independent regulatory body — the Pakistan Media Development Authority — is under consideration for addressing challenges and requirements for the convergent media environment of the 21st century to make Pakistan a major global center for multimedia information and content services. The government is not imposing the law but has been discussing the proposed regulatory framework with all stakeholders for the past months. In this regard, a series of consultative meetings have been held with media owners, editors, working journalists, anchorpersons, press clubs, civil society, etc. Further, Minister for Information and Broadcasting Chaudhry Fawad Hussain gave a detailed presentation to the joint meeting of Senate and National Assembly Standing Committee on Information and Broadcasting as well as to the federal cabinet, which negates the story that the proposed bill is being kept secret.
Maliha Shahid, Washington
The writer is the spokesperson for the Embassy of Pakistan.
