Information and Broadcasting Minister Fawad Chaudhry on Friday clarified that no Pakistani was declared anti-state in the Digital Media Wing’s (DMW) analytical report.
Advising PML-N leadership to hire the services of an expert to learn about the contents of the DMW report, Fawad said unfortunately the political parties did not have research wings so that they could help their leadership to understand an issue in depth.
“The analysis of Rana Sanaullah, Khurram Dastageer and Shahid Khaqan Abbasi reflected that they were not well aware of the latest technology and having lack of enough knowledge,” the minister added.
The PML-N leaders unfamiliar with technology could also contact the ministry’s Digital Media Wing that was set up to guide them, he said.
The DMW, in its report, provided data of 150 trends that were running on the social media networking site Twitter, he said, adding a total of 3.7 million tweets were posted to build an anti-Pakistan narrative. People of India, Afghanistan and others took part to push that narrative online, he disclosed.
He said India did use bot technology to promote anti-Pakistan tweets.
He said the report did not comment on the people living in Pakistan, clarifying, “if someone will be taking part in #SanctionPakistan trending right now on social media and opposing it – then it does not mean that they indulged in an anti-state activity.”
The media wing of Pashtun Tahafuz Movement (PTM) had participated in spreading and posting anti-state trends on social media. The data on PTM’s role in supporting the anti-state narrative was included in the DMW report which could be analysed by people themselves.
PML-N SLAMS REPORT: The PML-N criticised the report saying it had equated Pakistan’s opposition politicians and journalists with India and Israel without any proof.
Addressing a press conference in Islamabad, former prime minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi flanked by Khurram Dastgir, Rana Sanaullah and Marriyum Aurangzeb said the 135-page report had put Pakistan’s opposition politicians and journalists on a par with India and Israel.
He had said the report sought to demonise and issue edicts based on assumptions without analysing the content of tweets used as the basis for these accusations.
Abbasi had said the map published in the report shows Kashmir as a part of India which was the most outrageous and unforgivable mistake and yet there was no accountability for it.
This, he had said, was because none of the government ministers even read the report and even if they did, they didn’t have the intelligence to know what was wrong.
The former prime minister had said that the report was nothing but a distraction from the failures of the PTI government at every level. He pointed out that even after thousands of lives sacrificed and billions of dollars lost by Pakistan in the war on terror in Afghanistan, the world today viewed Pakistan as an equal stakeholder.
He also condemned demonising Afrasiab Khattak, Farhatullah Babar, Bushra Gohar and others.
