Pakistan National Assembly’s Standing Committee on Defence was informed on Monday that the social media companies were not doing enough to combat cybercrime in the country.

The meeting, headed by Amjad Khan, was briefed over the compliance of social media giants such as Facebook, Twitter, and TikTok to curb cybercrime in liaison with the government agencies, Tribune reported.

The National Counter Terrorism Authority (NACTA) officials regretted the social media companies’ lack of willingness to collaborate and cooperate, saying: “Facebook does not even bother to respond to our requests.”

The secretary of interior informed the committee that 94,000 cybercrime complaints had been registered since last year. “We are looking into every complaint and will not spare anyone.

“The FIA's cybercrime wing receives 260 complaints regarding anti-government, anti-religious, fake accounts and child pornography posts daily,” the secretary informed.

Briefing the committee, the PTA officials said under the directives of the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA), access to almost all pornographic websites was blocked in the country.

“The complaints regarding blasphemy cases have also declined after effective measures,” the officials assured the committee.

An FIA official informed the committee that due to Covid 19, the training of officials in dealing with such cases could only be conducted virtually, and it did not yield a satisfactory result.

(SAM)