Moot urges people not to forward offensive material on social media blindly
HYDERABAD: Speakers at a ‘law conference’ urged people to give up forwarding material blindly on social media because many things were offensive and it constituted a crime to spread them carelessly.
They said the world had tuned into a global village where one was not connected to one’s real brother but he was linked to the entire world through internet. Massive use of internet had increased dependability on artificial intelligence, forcing real intelligence to take a backseat, they said.
They were speaking at the conference organised by Sindh Law College in collaboration with a non-governmental organisation that concluded on Thursday evening.
Fahim Ahmed Siddiqui, a judge of Sindh High Court, discussed advantages and disadvantages of mobile phones, and called for saving real intelligence.
He expressed serious concern over the fact that people had no awareness about cybercrimes and related laws.
Everyone used internet without looking into its merits and demerits in the absence of a regulatory framework, he said.
Ali Palh and Tariq Pervez Memon advocates said that use of social media on mobile phone had increased by 30 per cent.
Retired Justice Amir Hani Muslim, chairman of Supreme Court-mandated commission on water and drainage, who chaired the moot’s last session on environmental degradation, said that there was zero awareness about environmental protection and degradation.
He said that 12,000 tons of waste went into the sea and polythene bags had destroyed two to three miles of seashore. About 2,200 outlets were used for throwing effluent made up of municipal, industrial and hospital waste into the Indus.
Regretfully, he said, the department concerned did not even have a list of industries in the province and the nature of industrial production. In next few months, the quantum of effluent would reduce as the industries had been directed to set up internal treatment plants “but this process [of clean environment] has to be sustainable. Having started the job in January this year, I have played my innings,” he said.
He referred to government’s freshwater supply scheme for Achhro Thar and said that such a scheme be replicated beyond Mithi.
“I believe reverse osmosis plants (RO) are not a permanent substitute [for drinking water supply]. Out of 834 ROs, 239 are working and of 84 big ROs, 50 are operational [in the desert],” he said.
He said that although the government scheme could not cater to water needs of entire Thar it would still benefit a substantial part of the population.
Ali Akbar Rahimoon, head of a Thar-based NGO, believed coal extraction in Tharparkar was going to change the desert’s landscape. No one had bothered to carry out a study to point out how this development process was going to affect peoples’ lives.
Sindh Prosecutor General Ayaz Tunio discussed faulty investigations and said that he had written to Sindh IGP asking him to take action against those responsible for defective probe. With faulty investigation prosecution could not proceed with cases successfully, he said.
Zulfikar Halepoto of Centre for Social Change spoke on environmental justice and said that Indus delta was faced with threat of destruction and forests and mangrove cover had disappeared. “Its environmental cost is huge,” he said.
PTI’s MNA Lal Malhi, retired judge Ghulam Rabbani, barrister Palwasha, Sepa official Munir Abbasi also spoke at the moot.
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