Another gaffe by PTA

Different departments of the government, it seems, cannot stay out of controversy for long. The past week was rife with news about the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) and its directive to all mobile companies to implement a system to censor messages. The idea was for the service providers to block all text messages which contained any obscene word. The whopping 1695 words which the PTA considered obscene were part of the list which was leaked online along with the directive.

The notification, as expected, was met with incredulousness, ridicule and condemnation by people from all walks of life including lawyers and civil rights activists. Besides inclusion of some truly mind-boggling "obscene" words, there were many words which left everyone who came across them, baffled. For example, for reasons unfathomable, the PTA deemed it fit to ban seemingly innocent words such as "athletes foot", or those part of regular communication such as "glazed donut", and "taxi". Even some words related to female anatomy were put in the list which could potentially disrupt cancer awareness campaigns in a conservative society where medical information is already difficult to pass onto women.

The move on part of the PTA was ill-planned and not well thought-out -- hallmark of governance these days. Though the authority has been known to ban websites with objectionable material, and censor dissident voices from within the country, this attempt to limit peoples' communication most definitely went beyond the call of duty.

The PTA Director-General Muhammad Talib Dogar defended the action in the directive by invoking clauses from the Pakistan Telecommunication (Re-organisation) Act, 1996, and Protection from Spam, Unsolicited, Fraudulent and Obnoxious Communication Regulations, 2009. But the sections quoted from both related to harmful, fraudulent, obscene and indecent communication especially the kind sent without the consent of the receiver. It is unbelievable to note a government organisation trying to impose their will in a manner to alter the way people communicate with each other privately. 

The essence of these legislation and regulations relates to spam messages which most mobile users get by bulk every day and are certainly a cause of nuisance. They do not, and should not, be directed at personal, consensual communication between two users. Thus the ban on hundreds of words would have been more in violation of people's right to free speech than anything else. In real life, using expletives in informal consensual communication is not a crime subject to censorship or penalty. How could the same translate into mobile communication? Furthermore, since the list included more than six hundred Urdu words, how was PTA planning to work around a score of spelling alternatives? 

After the initial outburst of objection, in the local and international media, the PTA took a step back claiming that the contents of the list were not finalised; the list was more fluid in nature and was meant to be changed many times as consultations with mobile service providers continued, till a mutual agreement was reached. Then on November 22, a day after the mobile operators refused to implement the ban seeking further clarifications from the PTA, the authority finally threw up its hands and temporarily shelved the ban. According to its latest stance it plans to consult civil society representatives in addition to mobile phone operators to work out a much smaller list of words on which all stakeholders agree.

It seems for all intents and purposes that this might be PTA's permanent retrieval, but only time will confirm whether the authority decides to take up this slippery slope or calls it quits and moves on. Whatever its course in future, the PTA must tread the path of censorship in text messages cautiously.

It needs to focus more on providing relief to the consumers through controlling unsolicited messages sent to them, rather than making policies which would put unnecessary restrictions on their personal communication which would serve no purpose other than to alienate the very customers they promise to "serve".

Published in Business Recorder (25 November 2011).