The Pakistan government is pushing to have amendments to the Prevention of Electronic Crimes Act (PECA) tabled “as early as” this week (December 16-20), that would create a new authority body with controversially broad powers to block access to social media and to specific online content. As reported upon earlier in December, the amendments are part of the government’s strategy to tackle what it regards as “fake news”.

The proposed PECA amendments include the creation of a Pakistan Digital Rights Protection Authority (DRPA), which would, according to Human Rights Watch, “be authorised to prosecute people for sharing or accessing prohibited content, and take action against social media platforms that host such content.”

In addition to the creation of DRPA – to replace the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) concerning the monitoring of social media content - the amendments also introduce language to expand upon and redefine terms. For instance, the term “Social media platform”now includes the use of any software or tools that would be used to access social media platforms. The redefining of “Social media” points to the government potentially giving itself legal power to block tools such VPNs, after the PTA ban on VPNs was blocked by an opinion from the Ministry of Law.