According to Cabinet Division Parliamentary Secretary Sajid Mehdi, the federal government has closed over 80,000 mobile SIMs for disseminating misinformation. This was revealed to the National Assembly on Wednesday. The secretary informed the assembly while responding to a calling attention notice about fake news circulating in social media sites that the government has launched various efforts for this challenge.
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He then talked about the formation of a joint task force on this subject and noted that the task force has submitted its actual report to the Prime Minister, Shehbaz Sharif. He also emphasized the amendments needed in the Prevention of Electronic Crimes Act (PECA), in 2016, for effectively curbing the issue. He was of the opinion that amendments should be made to expedite cases related to the proliferation of information.
He made some mentions about registration in regard to Virtual Private Networks, as part of measures of addressing the challenge posed by fake news and tightening online activity surveillance. The secretary sounded his optimism that these would translate improvements in curb-attack efforts against fake news. An awareness campaign has also been initiated, which reminds the public of the perils and repercussions of disseminating fake news.