On January 29, 2025, Pakistan's parliament fast-tracked sweeping amendments to the Prevention of Electronic Crimes Act (PECA), creating a new Social Media Protection and Regulatory Authority (SMPRA) with sweeping powers to block platforms, demand takedowns, and prosecute users accused of spreading 'false or fake' information online. Conviction carries up to three years' imprisonment and fines of PKR 2 million (roughly USD 7,200). The bill cleared both houses in a matter of days, with opposition lawmakers walking out and journalists staging protests outside the National Assembly.
The Pakistan Federal Union of Journalists (PFUJ), the Joint Action Committee of media bodies, and digital rights organizations including Bolo Bhi and Media Matters for Democracy have challenged the amendments in the Islamabad High Court, arguing they violate Article 19 of the Constitution, which guarantees freedom of speech subject only to narrow, defined restrictions. The challenge is well-founded — and the international community of policymakers should pay attention, because PECA 2025 is becoming a template that other governments may copy.
What the Amendments Actually Do
The amendments do four things that should concern anyone who cares about open expression and a functional digital economy:
- Create the SMPRA with broad discretion to block social media platforms, order content removal, and refer users for prosecution — with limited procedural safeguards or judicial oversight before action is taken.
- Criminalize 'false or fake information' likely to cause 'fear, panic, or unrest' — language so vague that satire, political criticism, and good-faith reporting all sit within its potential reach.
- Establish a Social Media Complaints Council and Tribunal appointed by the executive, raising serious questions about independence from political pressure.
- Expand investigative powers of the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) under PECA's already-controversial cybercrime regime.
This is not a hypothetical concern. Pakistan's existing PECA framework, in force since 2016, has already been used to summon and detain journalists for tweets critical of the military and the judiciary. Reporters Without Borders ranks Pakistan 158th out of 180 countries in its 2024 World Press Freedom Index. The 2025 amendments do not fix that record — they entrench it.
The 'Misinformation' Problem Is Real. This Is Not the Fix.
We have written before that misinformation is a genuine challenge for democracies — but criminalizing it with prison sentences is among the worst available responses. The reasons are well established in comparative speech law and have been reinforced by experience across the Global South:
Vague speech offenses do not get used against the worst actors. They get used against journalists, opposition politicians, and ordinary citizens whose posts irritate the powerful.
Pakistan already saw this dynamic in February 2024, when access to X (formerly Twitter) was restricted nationwide following contested general elections, with the government citing 'national security' justifications that were never fully detailed in court. The platform reportedly remained inaccessible for over a year without a formal blocking order being made public. Layering SMPRA's discretionary powers on top of that record is a recipe for further opacity, not less.
The chilling effect also imposes real economic costs. Pakistan's IT export sector has been one of its rare bright spots, with the Pakistan Software Export Board reporting steady growth in remote services revenue. Freelancers, startups, and the country's e-commerce ecosystem depend on stable access to global platforms — and on a regulatory environment that does not turn every viral post into a potential criminal case. Investors notice when a country's regulator can switch off the platforms its citizens build businesses on.
A Proportionate Alternative Exists
The pro-innovation, pro-speech response to online harms is not 'do nothing.' It is to target conduct, not categories of speech. Pakistan could meaningfully address harms like non-consensual intimate imagery, coordinated platform manipulation, and incitement to imminent violence through narrowly drafted offenses with clear definitions, judicial warrants, and meaningful appeal rights. International models — from the EU's Digital Services Act, whatever its flaws, to India's earlier IT Rules consultation process — at least pretend to procedural rigor. PECA 2025 does not.
Three principles should guide any rewrite:
- Define harm narrowly. 'False information' is not a workable legal category. 'Knowingly fabricated content depicting an identifiable person committing a crime they did not commit' is.
- Require ex ante judicial oversight for platform blocking and account-level enforcement. Executive-appointed tribunals do not provide it.
- Protect intermediaries with conditional safe harbor, conditioned on transparent takedown processes — not on serving as arms of state censorship.
Why This Matters Beyond Pakistan
The Islamabad High Court's eventual ruling will matter regionally. South and Southeast Asian governments — from Bangladesh's Cyber Security Act to draft frameworks in several ASEAN states — are watching to see whether a 'false information' offense with custodial penalties survives constitutional scrutiny. A robust judicial rejection grounded in Article 19, alongside Pakistan's obligations under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, would be a meaningful precedent. A pass-through would be a green light for the worst speech-restrictive instincts of the region's executives.
The press freedom organisations and digital rights groups who filed the challenge — PFUJ, Bolo Bhi, Media Matters for Democracy, and the Joint Action Committee — are doing the work that international policymakers and platforms should be loudly supporting. Pakistan's citizens, journalists, and digital entrepreneurs deserve a regulatory environment that addresses real harms without holding the entire information ecosystem hostage to the political mood of the day.