X-rated minds

Let us be honest as to why social media is under the hammer. Not because of a newly-discovered national trend towards prurience but because Pakistan has moved into the next phase of censorship.

The ongoing effort to counter anti-state, fifth-generation information warfare to protect “national security and sanctity of defence institutions” is acquiring shades of digital moral policing. The army chief General Asim Munir’s statement at the Islamabad Dialogue Forum on Saturday brimmed with concern over national morality italicized by the rampant illegal use of VPNs. These virtual private networks bypass website blocks and internet firewalls. VPNs create a secure, encrypted tunnel between your device and a VPN server, masking your IP address and encrypting your internet traffic. This effectively hides your online activity and location from your ISP and other potential snoopers.

The same day the Islamic Ideology Council issued an edict about the “un-Islamic” use of VPNs and cited bizarre extended reasoning to list them in the category of sins. The run-up to this damnation of VPNs saw Pakistani newspapers publish stories on how many from our land of the pure access porn sites daily. Staggering number: about 20 million attempts per day according to a Pakistan Telecom Authority press release. The PTA has been pushing for “registering VPNs” through a white list. If your VPN is not on the list, in the days ahead you will be committing cybercrime(s) besides being considered a man of weak faith and absolute moral turpitude.

I don’t use a VPN.  All such tech things are left to the team that manages my social media platforms from their machines. I have no interest in porn sites. I am trolled all the time so I have zero sympathy for those pathetic souls who sit out of sight and hurl dirt at anyone they choose as targets. I am absolutely for nabbing these low lives, and their patrons and prosecuting them without mercy. As a student of modern communication, I am tuned into the global debate on the devastating impact of social media’s dark side. I understand and endorse reasonable and rational regulation—a stand that offends proponents of "unfettered access” and “unconditional freedom.”

However, we all need to pause and recall that VPNs’ public use, already common for visual voyeuristic pleasure, gained exceptional currency only when the state decided to ban X, first deceitfully and then openly. The entire traffic that used to move through the X pipe had to take the detour of VPNs. Those who justified and defended the X ban used the VPN vehicle to make their case. Everyone, from the President to the Prime Minister to the Establishment started to rely on these “illegal digital pathways” to stay connected with their audience. This produced a baffling scene. Practically, the whole country’s X users were pushed into taking the VPN route by state machinery that itself was traveling on the same path while yelling at everyone else that this was so wrong.

The X ban had everything to do with the state’s endless battle with the PTI-inclined click commandos, now joined by international brigades to malign the army and destroy the government’s credibility. We also know that X was rated negatively around the 2024 election when social media platforms were flooded with rigging claims. We are aware of the fact that the Establishment’s desire to filter propaganda against itself has led them to purchase expensive tools and build a national firewall. We have experienced the reality many times in the recent past that when the Establishment wants a particular issue to be highlighted and promoted, like for instance the SCO summit, all barriers are lifted from X, but on other occasions, the platform remains “banned”. The same happens to other forums like YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, and of course their global highway, the Internet.

The point is that all of the above doesn’t have the remotest connection with crumbling national values and morals. These are power-politics actions by an increasingly authoritarian state structure that wants to battle its real or perceived enemies by denying them the social media terrain. It also wants to build its image through “kosher posts” and halal VPNs as a modernizing force captaining the country’s ship to places it has not gone before. If this is the context of the case against VPNs, then it should be stated as such. Why bring morality, religion, faith, and Shariah into what remains a hard-nosed social media power grab for political reasons?

And at any rate, how are a state and a government that cannot stall illegal human trafficking, stop smuggling, block the movement of terrorists, or even regulate road traffic, manage national morals? Seriously. And what business and expertise does the Council of Islamic Ideology have to dwell on the subject and pass fatwas?

More to the point, to say VPNs cause moral degradation is to make the same argument that Imran Khan used to make about women's dress codes goading men to lustful thoughts, eventually leading them to commit sexual crimes, rapes included. Also, the moral argument echoes the thoughts of the chief religious exhibitionist, Dr Naik, which he displayed during his visit to Pakistan. He wanted females (12-year-old girls included) banished from his sight so that he could cling to his piety pole and not slip down to his real essence. You have to remember that social media technology doesn’t have a morality problem. People who use it have a morality deficit. The young girls did nothing to Dr Naik. His inner rot caused him to act as a censorious champion of religious morality. The fact is that sickness lies in the heads and hearts of those who have made Pakistan one of the top searchers of porn. It does not lie in the vehicle they are using to pursue their goals.

Battering VPNs or social media with moral lashes and entangling plain censorship in the web of religion and morality is itself immoral. It smacks of Ziaul Haq’s farcical referendum question: “Do you endorse the process initiated by the president of Pakistan, General Muhammad Zial Haq, for bringing the laws of Pakistan in conformity with the injunctions of Islam as laid down in the Holy Quran and Sunnah of the Holy Prophet (PBUH) and for the preservation of the ideology of Pakistan and are you in favour of continuation and further consolidation of that process and for the smooth and orderly transfer of power to the elected representatives of the people”. A yes meant electing him for 5 years. A no meant you were against Islam. Ironically, he had to totally rig even that referendum to post a victory.

Marrying social media chokehold to national morality is akin to Zia attaching commitment to Islam to his ruthless bid to stay in power. But clearly, we learn nothing from our history. This is why we are destined to repeat its worst phases forever and ever. So let us be honest as to why social media is under the hammer. Not because of a newly-discovered national trend towards prurience but because Pakistan has moved into the next phase of deepening censorship.