Source: AFP
Former Prime Minister Imran Khan’s party has redefined Pakistan’s election campaign with social media rallies and the use of AI technology in a bid to sidestep a national crackdown that followed it online.
Khan was jailed for setting up the campaign, while the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) has been largely restricted from campaigning for Thursday’s vote and banned from the airwaves.
Censorship then followed as the party promoted its election campaign online.
“They can ban whatever they want, they can ban YouTube and TikTok, whatever they want, but our vote is for Imran Khan,” 18-year-old Imran Aziz, a first-time voter, told AFP in a busy electronics market in the garrison city of Rawalpindi.
Pakistani internet freedom watchdog Bytes 4 All documented a four-hour social media blackout in January that cut off access to TikTok, Facebook, Instagram and YouTube while Khan’s PTI was broadcast live to his supporters.
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The blackouts were blamed by the government on “technical difficulties”.
The party’s main website was also blocked in January, and within hours a seemingly perfect copy appeared — except it contained disinformation intended to confuse voters.
The methods are not new and were also used by Khan when he was in power, but activists say the scale of the crackdown is “unprecedented”.
“A nation’s democracy is called into question when you have the establishment blocking the opposition’s ability to participate,” said Alp Toker, director of global network watchdog NetBlocks.
Websites have been removed
Khan says the campaign against him is an attempt by the government and the military to prevent him from returning to power after analysts say he fell out with the generals – Pakistan’s kingpins.
PTI websites have been blocked, including an official portal containing its national candidates.
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A duplicate website with a slightly different web address appeared online hours later, which contained misleading information about the candidates, leading voters to vote for representatives of other parties.
Source: AFP
PTI activists told AFP that they have taken down the fake website, but their own candidate website is still blocked.
It was already severely hampered by a ban preventing the party from using the traditional election symbol of the cricket bat. Literacy rates hover around 60 percent in Pakistan, so parties use symbols to identify their candidates.
Despite the restrictions, the PTI remains far ahead of its rivals in connecting to the internet with Pakistan’s young population, and tens of millions tune into its live streams.
It also became the first to use AI voice cloning technology, publishing a new speech by Khan behind bars.
“They have apps, they have online chats, they have done a TikTok jalsa (rally) which is unprecedented, at least in Pakistan, so they have a way to innovate and they have always been like that,” said Ramsha Jahangir, a tech. journalist.
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He said censorship efforts by the government have little impact on PTI’s popularity because the party is agile enough to continue reaching out to its voters.
Bytes 4 All Director Shahzad Ahmed agreed that, in a country with more than 70 million social media users and an average age under 21, such “endings are counterproductive.”
“Youth are rapidly adopting new technologies to bypass such blocks,” he said, pointing to the use of virtual private networks (VPNs).
“Attack on Freedom”
Independent candidates with limited resources who rely on social media to spread their message have also been hit hard.
Lawyer Jibran Nasir, who is running in the port city of Karachi, took the government to court over the social media shutdown, saying it set a “dangerous precedent” for the future and violated people’s constitutional rights.
“It is a direct attack on the freedom of expression of all Pakistanis, regardless of which part of the political spectrum they belong to,” he told AFP.
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“I rely primarily on social media because, given inflation, it’s nearly impossible to run a comprehensive campaign within budget.”
AFP spoke to two other independents who said their messages were also affected.
In addition to restrictions on political freedom, the measures have seeped into the operations of online businesses in a country facing an economic crisis.
Rabia Farhan, who runs a bakery business on Instagram from her home in Islamabad, said the holiday has left her unable to connect with vendors at a time when millions of Pakistanis are struggling due to rampant inflation and currency devaluation.
“Everything was down online even if we were using physical resources,” he told AFP.
Saba Mushtaq, of transport and delivery service Bykea, said the company experienced “significant operational disruptions” affecting 100,000 passengers and 25,000 drivers.
IT trade association Pasha told AFP it was trying to persuade the government to ensure internet outages did not hit the tech sector by protecting some websites.
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Brazen attempts to shut down the party’s online presence only hardens the resolve of PTI supporters.
“They are imposing these restrictions but they cannot take (Khan) out of our hearts,” said 28-year-old PTI supporter Malik Noman.
Source: AFP