The Prevention of Electronic Crimes (Amendment) Bill 2025 was passed by the Senate on 28 January, only five days after the proposed legislation had also sailed through the National Assembly. It now only needs the symbolic presidential assent to be enacted as law, even as condemnations pour in and protests have been launched against the amendments.
This enhanced version of the 2016 anti-cybercrimes law, colloquially known as PECA, will see a government-appointed troupe of new regulatory enforcers – a “social media protection and regulation authority”, a complaints council, one or more tribunals, and an investigation agency – become the sole arbiter of truth and falsehoods.
The amendment declares nine types of vaguely defined online information as “unlawful and offensive” and subjected to swift removal and blocking, including content that contains “aspersions” or “false and harmful information” about the reputation of anyone, including members of the organs of the State. A three-year jail term is set for intentional sharing of false information. Anyone who finds some online content offensive can file a complaint against it, even if the content is unrelated to them. The definition of social media is expanded to presumably include messaging apps, chat forums, and Virtual Private Networks (VPNs).
Put simply, it appears to bear the hallmarks of a law designed by the governing elites to protect their own interests and silence their critics.
The past eight years of PECA enforcement provide ample evidence for this argument. PECA offences were used in the past selectively to target critical opinions and the work of journalists, political workers and human rights defenders. Members of the current ruling party and their supporters themselves were subjected to persecution under the law. The new PECA amendments also hint at selective crackdown against political expression.
There is no denying that the spread of online disinformation is a pressing concern for Pakistani society. False messages might influence elections, create societal divisions, and endanger public health here, just like anywhere else on the planet. But the experience of governments worldwide shows that legal measures to curb disinformation face inherent limitations.
Disinformation uses the speed and scale of Internet architecture to proliferate. Its creators often adapt to countermeasures, reframing their language and moving to less-regulated platforms. Content banned in one jurisdiction can still be hosted from another. Measures to criminalise online content for stopping disinformation, then, become a slippery slope that eventually require shutting down the entire Internet, a prospect that is strikingly at odds with the Pakistan government’s self-stated plans of supporting the digital economy and increasing IT exports.
Disinformation also thrives on the absence of reliable information, which is often caused by the chilling effect of strict laws such as the PECA amendments. As AI-generated fakes grow in sophistication, many users will simply find it difficult to discern their veracity. Laws, including the woefully framed PECA amendments, cannot keep up with these trends. The likely result is that un-intentional recipients, targeted users, and innocent forwarders of potentially false information might get caught in the PECA dragnet with little recourse.
Distinguishing between harmful disinformation and legitimate free speech is not always clear-cut. The PECA amendments to criminalise false content risk overreach, leading to the suppression of independent journalism, diverse voices and dissenting opinions. The government’s solution to set up social media protection tribunals lacks independent oversight and has previously failed to effectively ensure transparent decision-making as seen in the case of the broadcast media regulator PEMRA or have any significant effect on viral disinformation campaigns as witnessed in the case of the Punjab Defamation Act 2024.
Disinformation is not just a technical problem, but also a social issue. People sometimes share false information online because it aligns with their beliefs, triggers their emotional reactions or reinforces their group identity. The PECA amendments might address the supply side of disinformation in an ideal world, but it will do little to tackle the demand side — why Pakistanis consume and spread such content in the first place.
Cognitive biases, such as the confirmation bias, make individuals more likely to trust information that supports their pre-existing views, regardless of its accuracy. No amount of regulation can eliminate these psychological tendencies, simply because discontents linked to broader socioeconomic and political tensions do not magically disappear when a tight legal regime is used to stifle expressions of discontent.
What then can Pakistani lawmakers do? How will we ever fix the problem of disinformation, they might ask.
For starters, the government must roll back the amendments and first ensure multi-stakeholder consultation. It once again failed to consult experts, the media industry and civil society representatives before introducing the PECA amendments. Even the draft was kept under wraps, apparently to manage criticism. This non-transparency is a terrible signal about intent.
Secondly, the government and policymakers should acknowledge that Pakistan is already over-regulated when it comes to expression and content. Without addressing the past misuse of existing laws including PECA, there can be no goodwill to start approaching the issues of disinformation and hate speech at the national level.
Finally, policymakers can learn from the best practices of regulating social media from other jurisdictions, such as the European Union which is Pakistan’s second-biggest trading partner according to one estimate, and multilateral institutions, such as UN agencies.
The common characteristics of these approaches are that they call for independent judicial oversight of online content regulation, prescribe that regulatory actions must be necessary and proportional to reduce the actual or anticipated harm from the content, and put accountability requirements on social media platforms, including the Big Tech companies. In Pakistan, unfortunately, it is the opposite: we want to control the behaviour of our citizens who use the Internet.
Legislation can play a role in combating online disinformation if it holds platforms accountable while exercising transparency rather than an overzealous push to localise personal data of citizens without any safeguards.
But ultimately, the legislative approach must be part of a broader strategy. Media literacy programs, public awareness campaigns, and fact-checking initiatives are essential to empower individuals to critically evaluate information. Technology companies must also take responsibility for content moderation, transparency, and the design of algorithms that prioritize sensationalism over accuracy.
The PECA amendments will not fix our “fake news” problem. It requires a collaborative effort to address online disinformation and create a more informed digital ecosystem based on respect for human rights.