Govt plans to make information go ‘viral’

All departments told to make pages, hire staff to run them and engage with people in polite manner

PESHAWAR: To make the provincial right to information law more effective, the government has decided to use social media as a medium and to “viraling information”.

In this regard, a circular has been issued to all government departments in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P) by the provincial Performance Management and Reforms Unit (PMRU) which provides a code of conduct asking all government departments to set up their social media accounts.

The objective: to put out information on development targets set, the work done and achievements of each of these departments, and hope that the information goes ‘viral’.

Hence, the official pages of these government departments were provided with a code of conduct to make sure that all the accounts operate in a unified manner.

According to the code, all government social media pages are required to be properly named after the respective department or unit using their full official name and to avoid abbreviations where possible. Moreover, the name of the institution’s website or other official social media accounts such as a Facebook page or Twitter account shall be mentioned on the official letterhead of all departments.

Moreover, the department would have to dedicate a resource to handle the page since the code forbids government departments from outsourcing the task to private individuals instead.

Before any information is published on the official pages of any department, the information shall be examined and vetted by the head of the concerned department or any authorised officer.

The code also forbids putting unrelated or false information on the official pages.

The code also bound the department to respond to comments left on officials posts. “All public comments on the official posts shall be properly responded with polite words and the public shall be engaged in positive and constructive dialog,” the notification read.

Moreover, to counter fake news, the code stated that official source of information shall be clearly mentioned in the post or comments for improved authenticity and reliability of the information.

However, at the end of the day, the official pages were directed to share and promote achievements of the department in a transparent and accountable manner, and raise awareness of the government’s strategic directions and initiatives.

To consolidate efforts, all government pages shall “Like” the PMRU page so that information posted by PMRU can be notified to the handlers of the government pages. The PMRU will also create a WhatsApp group for the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Social Media Team including all official handlers of the Government pages to disseminate instructions and improve collaborations.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 9^th, 2018.