Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) president Shehbaz Sharif’s remarks about the formation of a national government have stirred up a political debate in the country, reported Dawn.
PML-N termed the party president’s views as passing remarks based on his personal opinion about a post-election scenario.
“PML-N president and National Assembly Opposition Leader Shehbaz Sharif made a passing remark that if the people of Pakistan by the grace of God Almighty gave the PML-N the responsibility to govern again after the next elections, in his personal view he would not mind inviting other political parties, excluding the PTI, to contribute towards solving the massive crisis created by the Imran Khan government over their disastrous tenure in government,” said Marriyum Aurangzeb in a brief statement.
“Any news item carried by any news media stating otherwise is a misrepresentation of what the PML-N president said,” she added.
Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) described the statement as clear proof that the Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM) no more exists. The PPP believed it was an effort by the PML-N leader to keep himself “politically alive”.
Federal Minister for Information and Broadcasting Fawad Chaudhry said that Sharif’s proposal of a national government was “a bid to save his own skin”.
Sharif, while speaking to journalists in Karachi said, “Frankly, I am telling you that sometimes when I look at these huge problems and challenges, I feel convinced that it’s not possible for one party alone [to fix them],” he had said, adding: “It needs collective wisdom. It requires collective efforts. That’s why I think we should have a national government in place to sort out these huge tasks. I don’t know what the exact shape of this idea would be and the right time may make things clearer but for me it’s crucial. Even if we [PML-N] win a majority, we can’t fix it alone.”
Federal Minister for Information and Broadcasting Fawad Chaudhry took to Twitter to lash out at the Opposition stating that President Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) Shehbaz Sharif and Chairperson Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) Bilawal Bhutto “have not read a word of election reform and Pakistan Media Development Authority (PMDA) nor do they know what the proposals are.”
شہباز شریف اور بلاول بھٹو نے الیکشن اصلاحات اور PMDA کا ایک لفظ نہیں پڑھا نہ ہی انھیں کوئ پتہ ہےکہ تجاویز ہیں کیا،ہمارے ہاں اپوزیشن کا ایک ہی رول ہےکہ حکومت کے مخالف شیطان سے بھی اتحاد ہو جائے تو کرنا ہےایسے لوگ پاکستان کی قیادت کےخواہشمند ہیں جن کےاپنےفیصلے بھی اور لوگ کرتے ہیں
“Our Opposition has only one role, to unite with the anti-government satan,” added Fawad.
Shehbaz Sharif on Monday vowed to go against any government efforts to pass legislation related to the media.
Shehbaz Sharif said no party in parliament will support this “black law” except for the government.
“We will join forces with all political parties […] and take Opposition into confidence against this black law,” Shehbaz said, adding: “This is a matter of life and death for independent journalism, democracy, and constitutional freedom.”
“If any other government had imposed such restrictions, it would have been overthrown,” said Shehbaz.
Bilawal Bhutto also criticised the government for the proposed bill. He said, “We like it when Human Rights Watch (HRW) writes about injustice in Indian occupied Kashmir but go silent when it’s about Pakistan.”
We like it when @hrw writes about injustice in Indian occupied Kashmir but go silent when it’s about Pakistan; Human Rights Watch statement on Pakistan Media Development Authority (PMDA) legislation to silence Pak media must be read and this black law rejected – @BBhuttoZardaripic.twitter.com/pElhqjALkw
Taking a jibe at the government for its double standards, Bilawal added, “Human Rights Watch statement on PMDA legislation to silence Pakistan media must be read and this black law should be rejected as its against the freedom of speech in the country.”
Minister for Information and Broadcasting Fawad Chaudhry on Sunday said that Pakistan has issued visas to the Afghan cricket team.
Taking to Twitter, Chaudhry wrote that he hoped and prayed that the Afghan cricket team would bring smiles on the faces of its people. “My sincere prayers and best wishes are with you.” Fawad wrote the last line of his tweet in Pashto language.
پاکستان نے افغانستان کی کرکٹ ٹیم کو ویزہ جاری کر دیا ہے، ہم امید اور دعا کرتے ہیں کہ افغان کرکٹ ٹیم اپنے عوام کی چہروں پر مسکراہٹیں لائے گی…… “زما دا اخلاص نہ ڈکے نیکے حیلے اؤ دعاگانے تاسو سرا دی۔” #AfganistanCricketTeam
The Pakistan and Afghanistan cricket teams’ series was scheduled in Sri Lanka, which had announced 10-day restrictions on gatherings and other events in the wake of rising cases of Coronavirus.
As per reports, the series is in jeopardy and is expected to be shifted to any other country.
Meanwhile, the three-match ODI series between Pakistan and Afghanistan is back on track as Islamabad has issued visas to Afghan cricketers, reported Geo News.
Imagine being so consumed by hate, that you think best contribution you can make is by attacking a statue, of a person, who died centuries ago. Being a follower of Islam, which says that even smiling is a Sadqa, all you can do with your energy, & choose this violence https://t.co/ZhrO0JNpRd
Last year in December, police arrested a teenager for vandalising a statue of Maharaja Ranjit Singh, who ruled Punjab in the 19th century. The statue was installed in front of the Haveli of Rani Jindan at the Lahore Fort. This is the third time that Maharaja Ranjit Singh’s statue has been vandalised.
Federal Minister for Information Fawad Chaudhry had a telephonic conversation with Pakistani Nobel Laureate Malala Yousafzai. During the conversation, Malala expressed her concern over the situation of women in Afghanistan as the Taliban took over Kabul on Sunday and said that Pakistan should play its role in women’s education in Afghanistan.
Malala said that she also wrote a letter to Prime Minister Imran Khan in this regard.
Fawad Chaudhry assured Malala that Pakistan will play its role in promoting education in Afghanistan. He also said that Pakistan is providing educational facilities to almost 6,000 Afghan refugee children.
Yesterday, Malala tweeted, “We watch in complete shock as Taliban takes control of Afghanistan. I am deeply worried about women, minorities and human rights advocates.”
“Global, regional and local powers must call for an immediate ceasefire, provide urgent humanitarian aid and protect refugees and civilians,” she added.
We watch in complete shock as Taliban takes control of Afghanistan. I am deeply worried about women, minorities and human rights advocates. Global, regional and local powers must call for an immediate ceasefire, provide urgent humanitarian aid and protect refugees and civilians.
Among the myriad promises the current federal government has failed to deliver is one pledge that the government did not commit to but has delivered in spades. I am talking about the federal administration providing us with therapy, albeit in the form of laughter. Whenever we, the people, have been at the edge of bucking under crippling inflation, the government has provided us with a moment of undiluted merriment, always at its own expense.
In times of crisis, and what is Pakistan in if not a deep existential, democratic and economic crisis, comedians come to the rescue of their people, providing much needed merriment to take away our troubles for a moment or two. The government, however, decided to step in and provide laughter itself, in the process promoting harmony among citizens, taking away jobs from comedians as it has from nearly everyone else. We may have neither faith nor discipline but damned if we are not united in our misery.
Last year, Faisal Vawda selflessly decided to make us laugh when he accused Dr Musadik Malik, a PhD, of being a physician to a Gulf royal family. Where else but in a social welfare state will a prominent ruling party member prove himself to be a clown just to help his people out of depression. This is not Mr Vawda’s first attempt at comedy. After elite forces had successfully thwarted an attack on the Chinese consulate in Karachi, Vawda showed up in a bulletproof vest and armed with what he said was a Glock to “defend his country”. A more unpunctual, but well-meaning, well-dressed and well-to-do vigilante had not been seen before. Take that, Batman.
In another incident, a hilarious government announcement of Pakistan being one of the cheapest countries tied in with yet another fuel price hike. We all laughed our way to the shady hospitals where we had made deals to sell our kidneys in order to keep our bikes and cars running.
Never one to let tradition slide, PTI has earlier this week launched a hilarious report on digital trends, just as it finalised deals on the costliest purchase of LNG. In three years, PTI has provided us with plenty of laughter but this, ladies and gentlemen, was the jewel in the crown. Compiled by what we can only assume are people with the IQ of a cabbage, the report went on to report the origins and details of “anti-state” trends. The “deep analysis” had about as much depth as the puddle a newborn would create without a diaper. Oh PTI, how do we laugh at thee? Let me count the ways.
First off, were the graphs. Leave aside that they had probably been lifted straight off Tweepsmap, where the data was compiled from. Forget about the fact that they seemed to have been copy pasted by someone who wielded the mouse with a hoof instead of a hand. Pay attention to the fact that the content too seemed to have been finalised by someone who is getting the pay of a grade 22 officer but does not have the ability to read what has been put before him/her. The gender graph featured men, women and businesses/groups. The mind boggles at the possibilities the unveiling of this new gender has unleashed. Will we have toilets for businesses right alongside men’s and women’s? Will weddings be segregated into three sections? Will we have to issue new ID cards and passports? Will rishta aunties recalibrate their trade?
The age graph had a section for a group aged “10-23”. Let’s concentrate on the ludicrous assertion that tweens of the country are engaging in digital warfare under the behest of anti-state elements. It’s the perfect script for a horror movie.
Another infographic informs us that most of these anti-state handles also follow ICC. This is a win, whichever way we look at it. All traitors, great and small, gathered together at the altar of cricket with patriots, all united in their hopelessness. Brings a tear to the eye.
Finally, the report shows us page upon page of….. screenshots. Dozens of them. Spare a thought for the poor intern or low-paid individual who slaved away at his system, gathering tweets from known pro-PTI accounts and copy pasting away. Even Prime Minister Imran Khan’s ex-wife Reham Khan was not spared from the relentlessness of his dexterous fingers and numb mind.
Now, you may be inclined to think of this report as a loss. Our simple minds and lack of perception are to blame for this unimaginative conclusion. Remember the old adage, to think not of what the country can do for you but what you can do for the country. In this case, think not of how someone gets highly paid to embarrass the government, but that you too can get highly paid to embarrass the government, given the right connections.
Earlier this week, a report was released by the Digital Media Wing (DMW) of the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting titled, ‘Anti-State Trends: Deep Analytics Report’. The report had glaring errors as it tried to ‘analyse’ hashtags on Twitter to determine anti-state activities. The Current published an analytical report after going through the report page by page. The report mostly had screenshots of tweets that the government has deemed ‘anti-state’ and included tweets that were responding to some hashtags. Some hashtags in the report were there just for the sake of putting them there and labelling people ‘anti-state’. Information Minister Fawad Chaudhry has clarified that no Pakistani was declared anti-state in the DMW report but it was done to expose Indian bots. A disclaimer was also added after journalist Fereeha Idrees raised the issue as her name was also part of the report. Despite the disclaimer, the report’s name and a press conference by the Information Minister as well as National Security Adviser Dr Moeed Yusuf show that the government takes Twitter too seriously, as seriously as it takes media criticism.
Leaders of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) slammed the report for including journalists and political opponents in this report. It is indeed worrying that this trend of dishing out patriotism certificates has not stopped despite the fact that we have seen how dangerous it can be. Today is Pakistan’s Independence Day. We hope that our leaders will understand that all Pakistanis love Pakistan and their love or dissent does not mean it makes their patriotism any less. We all want Pakistan to prosper and we should not think that criticising the flawed policies of a state does not mean that such people should be labelled ‘traitors’ or ‘anti-state’. These tags have very serious repercussions in Pakistan.
It was also disturbing to see that the Noor Mukadam case was also mentioned in the report just because Indian channels also made reports about the case. It should not have been part of the report. The US did not call the Black Lives Matter movement ‘anti-state’. It was covered the world over. A state should not be so insecure. Dissent is a fundamental part of strengthening democracy. On this Independence Day, let us hope our leaders are more tolerant of dissenting views and objective criticism. Pakistan Zindabad!
Federal Minister for Information and Broadcasting Fawad Chaudhry has clarified that no Pakistani was declared anti-state in the Digital Media Wing’s (DMW) analytical report.
Fawad on Friday said that unfortunately, the political parties did not have political research wings, who could help their leadership to understand an issue in depth. Chaudhry advised the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) leadership to hire the services of an expert to learn about the contents of the DMW report.
Fawad maintained the fact that “the analysis of Rana Sanaullah, Khurram Dastagir and Shahid Khaqan Abbasi reflected that they were computer-illiterate individuals who were not well aware of the latest technology and lack of enough knowledge in this regard.”
The minister further added, “India did use bot technology to promote anti-Pakistan tweets.” Fawad 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.”
Commenting on the media wing of Pashtun Tahafuz Movement (PTM), Fawad said that 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.
Fawad further added that the ones unfamiliar with technology could also contact the ministry’s Digital Media Wing that has been set up to guide individuals.
Earlier, the PML-N slammed the report saying it had equated Pakistan’s Opposition, politicians, and journalists with India and Israel without any proof.
The government’s Digital Media Wing (DMW) recently released a report titled, ‘Anti-State Trends: Deep Analytics Report’. The Current analysed the report, which was discussed on Geo News programme ‘Aaj Shahzeb Khanzada Kay Sath’ on Thursday night. The Current found glaring errors in the report.
Mentioning The Current’s research, Shahzeb Khanzada stated the facts mentioned in our report. “From The Current’s analysis, the 134-page report has 85 pages that have screenshots of tweets, which means that 63.4 per cent of the report is based on screenshots of people who are using a certain hashtag that the government has identified as being anti-state. The number of tweets that are in these 85 pages amounts to 666 tweets out of which 142 tweets are from three accounts, which means that 21.3 per cent of the tweets used in this study came from three people.”
“After further analysis of the three accounts, The Current discovered that all three accounts had a combined following of less than 11,000,” mentioned Shahzeb.
حکومت کی طرف سے ٹویٹر ٹرینڈز پرمبنی رپورٹ میں کس طرح ڈیٹالیا گیا۔ دیکھیے
The report was released Wednesday evening around 5:30PM and a few hours later a disclaimer was added to the report. According to journalist Fereeha Idrees, the disclaimer was added after she raised the issue with the DMW for being highlighted in the report as a ‘replies with the most followers’ account.
Shahzeb Khanzada also mentioned that The Current reached out to TweepsMap, which was the primary analysis app used by the government for this report. The maps and information all have the Tweepsmap link on the maps and all charts in the report. We asked the CEO of TweepsMap Samir Al-Battran if they considered the analysis of the report to be authentic since it used their app service. Samir told us, “The government of Pakistan is not authorised to use our service. We will investigate how they got access to our analysis and get back to you on this.”
Federal Minister for Information and Broadcasting Fawad Chaudhry refuted these claims on Shahzeb Khanzada’s programme.
“Were the Twitter trends data compiled without research? Was the press conference held without reading the final draft? Was the patriotism of our own citizens deliberately questioned? How did you determine which tweet is anti and pro-state?,” asked Shahzeb.
“The data could have been complied on a single page as well. We analysed the data for the past two years, around 150 trends were made, and we checked how India and Afghanistan glorified those trends. Around 37 lac tweets were done on the very trends. We spent around 1,000 hours going through those tweets,” said Fawad Chaudhry.
کیا بس ٹویٹر ٹرینڈز کا ڈیٹا اکھٹا کر کے بغیر تحقیق کیے رپورٹ بنا دی گئی؟ کیا بغیر پڑھے ہی پریس کانفرنس کردی گئی؟ کیا جان بوجھ کر اپنے ہی شہریوں کی حب الوطنی پر سوال اٹھا دیے گئے؟ دیکھیے 1/2
Shahzeb reiterated the fact that the report should have included how India and Afghanistan were involved in generating, promoting, and glorifying the very trends and sentiment analysis of the tweets should have been checked.
” I think you did not read the mechanism and neither did you try to understand the work done in the report,” replied the minister.
“The positive and negative sentiment does not matter, what matters is that people participated in the trend. India did all this because it wanted to portray to the international spheres that there is chaos within Pakistan,” added Fawad.
Former Interior Minister Rehman Malik also thanked Shahzeb for highlighting how his anti-India tweet was also part of the DMW report. “I hope someone from the Govt will apologise to me tomorrow.”
A report released by the Digital Media Wing (DMW) of the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting titled, ‘Anti-State Trends: Deep Analytics Report’ is deeply misleading and based on assumptions instead of facts, The Current has discovered after analysing the report.
Glaring errors and almost comical additions, the report makes a correlation between analysing hashtags on Twitter to determine if someone is anti-state and is responsible for starting trends against Pakistan.
Before analysing the report, The Current researched and spoke with analysts who are well-versed with digital analysis. There is no record of any report on hashtag analysis to determine trends at a government level in any country at any time. Pakistan is the only country that has created a report based on hashtag analysis. Worldwide, hashtag analysis is considered to be deeply unreliable since it cannot understand what is written in the tweet – it is just able to see what is being discussed.
WHAT IS THE REPORT?
The report is a compilation of hashtags that created trends that the government deems anti-state. The report shows information collected about hashtag trends and then lists pages of screenshots that show different Twitter handles sharing tweets that have the ‘anti-state’ hashtag. They do not differentiate between users and also label ‘influencers’ – people with a following who have tweeted or retweeted/replied to the hashtag.
In effect, the report seems to declare all the users in the report as anti-state, until one prominent journalist got them to add a disclaimer last night.
HOW WAS THE INFORMATION COLLECTED?
Since the whole report is based on hashtag analysis, it will be considered to be unreliable data collection and cannot be considering as a legitimate report in any institution.
When The Current reached out to General Manager of the Digital Media Wing (DMW), Imran Ghazali, he responded to the question of faulty analysis of hashtags by saying, “The purpose of this report was to ascertain factual data and to analyze social media trends that were anti-state, Data was collected after analysing Pakistan Twitter Panel from June 2019- August 2021. Those hashtags were marked for data collection where the content of tweets were planned and propagated through a network to spread anti-state trends.”
According to a source in the government, the information used is public. “Publicly released data is accurate. It’s no rocket science, anybody with a credit card can get this data. Hence made public.”
From The Current’s analysis, the data was collected by using a web application called, ‘Tweeps Map’, which is open to the public.
From our findings, the 134-page report has 85 pages that have screenshots of tweets, which means that 63.4 per cent of the report is based on screenshots of people who are using a certain hashtag that the government has identified as being anti-state. The number of tweets that are in these 85 pages amount to 666 tweets out of which 142 tweets are from three accounts, which means that 21.3 per cent of the tweets used in this study came from three people.
After further analysis of the three accounts, The Current discovered that all three accounts had a combined following of less than 11,000.
We discovered that the hashtag #SanctionPakistan was ‘analysed’ for 41 days, Pakhtun Tahafuz Movement (PTM) hashtags were clubbed together as “PTM Trends Tantamount to National Security” (the report doesn’t list which hashtags were used within this topic) and were ‘analysed’ for 22 months, #AbAwamSmashNahiHogi was ‘analysed’ for one day, and #StateKilledUsmanKakar, #IsraeliJetinPakistan, ‘JUIF Anti State Trend’, was ‘analysed’ but no time duration is given.
WHY AND WHEN WAS THE ‘DISCLAIMER’ ADDED?
The report was released Wednesday evening around 5:30PM and a few hours later a disclaimer was added to the report. According to journalist Fereeha Idrees, the disclaimer was added after she raised the issue with the DMW for being highlighted in the report as a ‘replies with the most followers’ account.
“I have always raised my voice against any propaganda against our state but the way the report was compiled, it made me look as one of the culprits and suddenly social media was rife with messages calling me anti-state,” Fereeha told The Current, “When I made the query, I was given the following explanation.”
The explanation given to Fereeha by the DMW stated, “All the accounts in the report doesn’t mean they took part in the anti-state activity…It shows the whole journey of the trends/hashtags, so in this case Fareeha Idrees replied/rebutted on the Israeli related trend and that’s why it mentions ‘Replies with most mentions’ in the report.”
After the DMW response, Fereeha demanded that they add a disclaimer to the report. A disclaimer was added which stated, “If an account is listed in a report – it doesn’t always imply that the content of the tweet is Anti-State. Some accounts have engaged/replied with an anti-state hashtag to rebut. But since they used the hashtag their accounts got listed in the report.”
Imran Ghazali admitted to adding the disclaimer after Fereeha raised an objection about the fairness of the report.
The Current asked Ghazali about how they have divided the report to show which people mentioned were anti-state and which ones were considered pro-state. Ghazali refused to directly answer the question and stated, “We have not given any number for pro-state or anti-state accounts but showed below the hashtags we highlighted the accounts which contributed to a certain hashtag – tweets, top contributors, replies etc.”
When we pressed him to answer the question about how the people selected were separated into anti-state and pro-state, he said, “If an account is listed in a report – it doesn’t always imply that the content of the tweet is Anti-State. Some accounts have engaged/replied with an anti-state hashtag to rebut. But since they used the hashtag their accounts got listed in the report.”
The implication of his answers show that the report does not – and cannot- differentiate people’s points of view on a tweet, which means that someone who has posted a ‘pro-state’ tweet condemning the hashtag will also be added into the list of someone who is considered anti-state.
WAS THE GOVERNMENT ALLOWED TO USE THE APP ‘TWEEPSMAP’?
The Current reached out to TweepsMap, which was the primary analysis app used by the government for this report. The maps and information all have the Tweepsmap link on the maps and all charts in the report. We asked the CEO of TweepsMap Samir Al-Battran if they considered the analysis of the report to be authentic since it used their app service. Samir told us, “The government of Pakistan is not authorised to use our service. We will investigate how they got access to our analysis and get back to you on this.”
We asked him for further details, asking if an individual used their service for analysis for a government funded report, would that be against their rules, to which Samir replied and said, “…Government agencies go through a vetting process before we allow them to use our service. We were never in communication with the government of Pakistan…Yes, [using the app without informing us what it is for] would be a misrepresentation and is definitely against our rules.”
The Current asked Ghazali if they used the application and if they had authorisation to which he said, “We used different tools/APIs including our internal tools to analyse data”. We asked him since TweepsMap is the only one that is being listed in the report, if they had gotten a subscription for the government of Pakistan to which we got no response.
WHAT ELSE IS IN THE REPORT?
We analysed the tweets used in the 85 screenshots present in the report and found some comical discrepancies. One retweet had the #SajalAly hashtag along with the ‘anti-state’ hashtag ‘#AccountabilityofZarbeAzb’. We went through the Twitter account to find that the tweet mentioned in the report was a meme of Dr Firdous Ashiq Awan.
A tweet by former Interior Minister Rehman Malik is included in the #SanctionPakistan list in which he is criticising Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the US.
The tweet Rehman Malik retweeted
The report also includes references to “a group of Wikipedia Admins most of whom are based in India,” giving state level credibility to an online encyclopedia that can be edited by anyone. With glaring spelling mistakes and analysis based on unauthorised data, the summary of the Digital Media Wing Deep Analysis report has been summed up by one senior data analyst based in Singapore, “That just goes to show… they don’t understand how it works.”
