Old and New Media: Converging During the Pakistan Emergency (March 2007-February 2008)

7. Civilians with camera phones

February 21, 2008: Rigging during 2008 general elections exposed

On February 21, a civilian monitor posted a video documenting blatant election rigging to YouTube. The clip shows a woman in charge of conducting polling at the NA250 station in Karachi marking several ballots in favor of the MQM political party with her thumbprint (owing to low literacy rates, this is a common way of casting a vote). The angle from which the video is shot, its quality, and duration indicate that the civilian monitor used a concealed camera phone to capture the incriminating footage.[75]

By February 22, the link to the YouTube clip was distributed via the mailing lists that had been established in the run-up to the election and posted to a handful of blogs. But the same day, users began to complain that they could not access the YouTube domain. Blogs such as PKPolitics [76] and Adnan’s Crazy Blogging World [77] reported that YouTube had been banned in Pakistan. These reports prompted a range of responses from internet users nationwide: some claimed that they could still access the video-sharing site, others were convinced that the Pakistan Telecommunications Authority (PTA) had in fact banned YouTube. Eventually, it was determined by several bloggers that users relying on internet service providers that utilized the infrastructure--primarily phone lines--of the government-run Pakistan Telecommunications Limited (PTCL) were being prevented from loading the YouTube domain.

Since the Pakistani government had not officially announced a ban on the video-sharing site, bloggers began to speculate as to why access to YouTube was being limited. Adnan Siddiqi--who maintains Adnan’s Crazy Blogging World--wrote:

I … don’t know what’s the actual reason [for the YouTube ban]

but … [people] say that there were some videos published on YouTube which were singing praises of free and fair election in Pakistan.

[78]

Similarly, with reference to the YouTube election rigging clip, Awab Alvi blogged on Teeth Maestro: "Sadly the release of these videos appear [s]

too suspiciously close to the YouTube blocking, which came barely a day after these videos become public."[79] Pakistanis posting to online chat forums such as Shiachat also linked the government’s attempt to block YouTube to the clips documenting election rigging.[80] Indeed, news of the government’s attempts to suppress evidence of election rigging sparked a vibrant conversation throughout the Pakistani online community about the transparency of the 2008 elections, the frequency of polling violations, and the significance of rigging. The political party whose officials can be seen improperly marking ballots in the video was also maligned.

On February 23, the Pakistani government officially blocked access to the YouTube domain, claiming that the popular website hosted blasphemous content. No mention of the election rigging videos was made in the announcement. The BBC reported that the PTA had instructed Pakistani internet service providers to block the site because it featured the controversial Danish cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad as well as a trailer for a Dutch film that negatively portrays Islam.[81]

News of the official ban prompted quick efforts against censorship throughout the Pakistani blogosphere. Bloggers alerted users that one major internet service provider relying on foreign routers had not banned YouTube and that the election rigging video was still available for viewing. To ensure wider access, the blog NaiTazi uploaded the election rigging clip in an embedded format that did not require access to YouTube for viewing purposes.[82] Links to this embedded version of the clip were widely forwarded via the mailing lists of several bloggers, The Emergency Times blog, and the Student Action Committee. It is significant that bloggers were not convinced by the government’s allegations about blasphemous content and instead focused their efforts on preventing the election rigging videos from being suppressed.

It is interesting to note that if the government had not blocked YouTube, the election rigging video would only have been viewed by activists, students, and volunteer monitors who subscribed to mailing lists. The YouTube block, however, created a buzz in the blogosphere and curiosity about the government’s motivations, thereby attracting more attention to the election rigging clip and ensuring its broad circulation.

The incident also prompted an interesting collaboration between old and new media. Soon after reports about the YouTube ban surfaced online on February 22, the leading independent news station Geo TV broadcast the original video uploaded by the civilian monitor. However, as it became increasingly clear that the government was making an effort to suppress the video, the news channel, which had already been banned during the 2007 emergency, ceased broadcasting the clip.

Instead, the channel took a cue from the clip’s content and, emboldened by the online response to the YouTube video, began broadcasting other footage that revealed irregularities at polling stations. Although Geo TV reporters had captured this footage on election day, February 18, they did not compile and broadcast it as an investigative report focusing on election rigging until February 22, the day the YouTube video was being circulated online.[83] The channel made sure to include any footage captured on hidden cameras in an effort to mimic the tactics of citizen journalists and civilian monitors who mobilized for the election.

Interestingly, some of the early viewer comments about the election rigging clip posted to YouTube betray skepticism about the video’s authenticity, with one viewer asking why Geo TV has not broadcast the clip if it is genuine. This response shows that the primary trust of the public remained with mainstream media outlets, rather than citizen journalists, even at a time when new media tools were in wide deployment. While it cannot be explicitly documented, the fact that Geo TV did eventually broadcast the YouTube clip must have boosted the perceived credibility of citizen journalism. More importantly, the fact that Geo TV shifted the focus of its programming to accord with a civic media artifact indicates that the Pakistani media landscape is moving towards a hybrid model, where professional journalists take the work of citizen journalists seriously, while citizen media relies on the mainstream media for dissemination and legitimacy. Another lesson highlighted by the fate of the YouTube clip is that new media platforms are not utilized by the public alone. Officials of the Pakistani government were obviously tracking the coverage of the elections by citizen journalists and understood the reach and influence of the video-sharing site.

On February 24, the Pakistani government’s attempts to block YouTube led to a worldwide shutdown of the website for several hours. A Pakistani internet service provider complying with the ban routed global traffic to YouTube according to erroneous internet protocols, preventing users from accessing the site.[84] This error prompted a global condemnation of the Pakistani government’s attempts at censorship and fueled a debate within the Pakistani blogosphere about the PTA’s readiness to enforce domain-wide censorship. For example, a guest blogger on the Teeth Maestro website wrote:

It seems illogical for the government of Pakistan to hinder their own people from using one very important tool of the modern era. Pakistan Internet Exchange is also advised to upgrade its filtering/censorship systems which can cater to URL-specific blocks and not take the entire country down a roller coaster of censorship.

[85]

Owing to the global ramifications of the YouTube block, the Pakistani government was forced to lift the ban on February 27. Clips showing election rigging--those posted by the civilian monitor as well as subsequent broadcasts from independent news channels--continue to be available on the website.