Countering Disinformation in Pakistan: Lessons and Recommendations for Digital Journalism

"Disinformation has arguably created severe risks for political and social development in Pakistan in recent years."

This report, published by the Freedom Network and Digital Media Alliance of Pakistan (DigiMAP) with support from International Media Support (IMS), discusses the nature and perceived impact of disinformation in Pakistan and investigates the disinformation responses by academia, media development organisations, news media, Big Tech, and fact-checking organisations. Based on the findings, it also provides evidence-based recommendations on how to deal with disinformation more effectively going forward, including training, media and information literacy (MIL) programmes, and coalition building.

According to the report, research evidence suggests that the diverse kinds and formats of disinformation observed in Pakistan have endangered public health, political stability, human rights, journalism, and peace in the recent past, especially during the years of the COVID-19 pandemic and the political upheaval and transition in 2022. However, Pakistan's policy response to disinformation has received criticism locally for its insistence on knee-jerk legislation to block false content without safeguarding free speech and without considering the potential misuse of laws to stifle dissent. On the other hand, non-governmental responses have shown more diversity and vision - for example, by launching fact-checking operations, conducting research, running awareness campaigns, and training journalists. This study was, therefore, initiated to explore the nature and effectiveness of these non-governmental responses in order to advocate for better solutions to the challenges of disinformation.

As explained in the report, "the research approaches disinformation responses from the perspective of journalism, specifically digital news media. This is because reliable journalism is not only a casualty of disinformation but also its antidote, and Pakistani journalists and the local news industry have a frontline role in countering disinformation to ensure the public has access to trustworthy information."

The study used a comprehensive literature review, key informant interviews with a small sample of individuals working on local disinformation responses, and a short online survey of Pakistani digital journalists about their needs related to countering disinformation.

The findings, as highlighted in the report, show that journalistic and fact-checking disinformation responses in the country have struggled due to lack of conceptual understanding of disinformation among journalists, monetisation trends that incentivise sensationalist news and reduce the impact of capacity-building initiatives, lack of financial sustainability of responses, language barriers, and political backlash.

At the same time, the research finds that local capacity-building responses have improved the ability of individual journalists to understand COVID-19 misinformation and hashtag manipulation on Twitter, whereas fact-checking responses have led to the development of efficient workflows, informed recruitment principles, contextual verification practices, and collaboration with social networks to down-rank viral online disinformation.

The study also confirms findings from the literature that disinformation is negatively affecting the work and safety environment of Pakistani digital journalists. The journalists surveyed for this research reported that disinformation has increased their risk of getting deceived by fake social media posts during online news gathering. In addition, most women journalists surveyed for the study said they were targeted with gendered disinformation campaigns, which caused them physical, psychological, or reputational harm. A majority of surveyed women digital journalists also believed they face additional challenges to counter disinformation due to their gender identity. The digital journalists who participated in the survey identified fact-checking training as their most urgent need to counter disinformation.

Based on the findings, the study offers recommendations in the following four areas of disinformation responses:

• Fact-checking recommendations: Existing and new fact-checking organisations should consider organisational aspects of operations (team size, scope of fact-checks, methodology, and audience engagement), process (verification tools and explanation), financing (business model, Big Tech collaboration, and risks associated with revenue streams), and collaboration (working with news media, working with civil society, and working with youth and academia) to improve their consistency, impact, and effectiveness.
• Training recommendations: Media development organisations, journalism support groups, and news media outlets should refine their capacity-building interventions by focusing on specific themes (conceptual clarity, social media manipulation, and writing disinformation-related news investigations), training design (sustained training programmes), and follow-up mechanisms (impact assessments, post-training engagement, and thematic cohort development).
• MIL recommendations: Education-based responses that engage young children, students, and teachers, as well as public awareness campaigns designed to reach the general public or diverse population groups, should be prioritised. These responses require multi-stakeholder collaboration among civil society, academia, media, and fact-checkers.
• Coalition-building recommendations: Key stakeholders should be brought together to develop a broad consensus in Pakistan on the strategy to counter disinformation. The consensus can be better articulated through a structured but non-bureaucratic platform, such as a cause-centred coalition. This approach may help institutionalise disinformation responses and specify duties of stakeholders. The coalition should make its case public through conferences and campaigns. Regional information exchanges and sharing of lessons about fact-checking and journalism-related disinformation responses should be organised, as these can benefit local knowledge of effective interventions in Pakistan.