Digital emissaries: State relies on proxies amid social media blackout

PM, ICT police used social media while the public couldn’t access it

ISLAMABAD:

Surprising as it may seem, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and the capital’s police turned to proxies as their digital emissaries – Virtual Private Network (VPN) and people sitting abroad – when the government ordered a social media blackout to quell resistance as well as nationwide protests following Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Chairman Imran Khan’s arrest.

When Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube were inaccessible in the country on Saturday after being temporarily restored late on Friday, the prime minister and the Islamabad Capital Territory (ICT) police sneakily tweeted and shared information on social media sites through proxies.

The practice of speaking through proxies in the midst of a social media blackout caused by a government-ordered suspension of mobile broadband services in the country led experts to question how the premier and the police accessed Twitter, etc., or if they subverted the ban themselves through VPN use when people had no or limited access to the internet.

“I think what this Twitter ban exposes is the complete lack of authority the current government has over the issue,” a lawyer and political analyst, Abdul Moiz Jaferii said. “First they made internet-reliant businesses and employees suffer for two days, and now they are all busy subverting the ban themselves through VPN use.”

The expert said that Pakistan first banned all VPNs and later decided to allow only those VPNs to call themselves legal that registered themselves with the PTA. “It is hence highly likely that all these government individuals are themselves breaking the law when they access social media,” Jaferii said before incorporating that “the same media they have tried to put out of the reach of the people they are afraid of letting vote”.

Nighat Dad, a lawyer and the executive director of the Digital Rights Foundation (DRF), said that there is an irony in this entire internet shutdown episode where 3G and 4G services were not available, but people saw government officials tweeting and using social media platforms when the social media was not accessible to masses.

“The prime minister was tweeting when social media was not accessible,” the renowned digital rights expert wondered. “Does this mean that the prime minister was also using VPN or did he have some access available to use social media apps?”

Also, Dad said, it shows how these platforms are important for communication because all these government officials, including the prime minister, law enforcement agencies and Islamabad police, were constantly live tweeting about the situation arising out of protests and Imran’s court appearances.

Dad questioned the use of police’s tweets about alerts, traffic updates and protest situation when the citizens were denied access to social media platforms. “If citizens do not have access to social media or when they are not meant to have access, the question is who they [PM and police] are sending this information to?” she asked.

During the shutdown, the police, however, counted on human proxies. A spokesperson for ICT police, Taqi Jawad, told The Express Tribune that the police did not use VPN during the internet shutdown.

Revealing the secret, the spokesperson said that a superintendent of police, who is abroad on training, shared all the police updates on Twitter and other social media platforms.

PTA Spokesperson Malahat Obaid shared that the registrations of VPNs under the applicable regularity framework are still in the field. However, the spokesperson said, considering some technical limitations, banks, foreign missions, and IT-enabled services are using VPNs for their work and blocking of VPNs will badly affect the operational issues.

Further, she said, PTA has also been directed by the Ministry of Information Technology and Telecommunication not to block any site/platform without its permission. However, she added, through public notices all are asked to register their VPNs through the online facility.

Meanwhile, no comments were received till the filing of the story when the information minister was asked if it was justified for a PM or government official to first shut down the internet and social media apps and then use VPN services to access Twitter, etc.

The government’s decision to control the flow of information and to have an upper hand came after ex-PM Imran’s supporters engaged the government and law enforcers on the streets as well as on social media.

Though the courts have granted relief to Imran and he has gone back to Lahore, the government has not yet lifted the ban on social media sites. However, despite the restrictions, people have also found a way to communicate and stay informed through proxies – just like PM and the police.