PTI distances itself from cyber attacks, spamming under party name

In a move to distance itself from some of its more unruly online supporters and those "claiming to be" part of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), the party has said it has no association with "Insaf Cyber Team" -- an online group supporting Imran Khan who allegedly took over AAJ TV’s popular talk show Bolta Pakistan’s Facebook page for some time.

In a press release, the PTI said it "does not subscribe to, and neither does it support any form of hacking of an website, Facebook page or Twitter account regardless of how adverse the point of view might actually be."

While reiterating the PTI's stance on social media responsibility, the party said, "due to the open nature of the social web, PTI cannot not take responsibility for acts of any individual and/or impersonators to defame the party or any content posted by them to which it has no administrative control over."

Aside from outright hacking, PTI supporters or impersonators have been known to carry out mass online attacks on journalists and media groups, particularly using spamming of Facebook pages, Twitter accounts and email inboxes as a means to register their protest against critiques of the party or its chairman Imran Khan.