Laraib Nisar
Moral policing- imposing one’s subjective standards and ideas of ethics and morality on other people and preventing them from exercising their civil liberty- has become a common practice in Pakistan. Despite being unlawful, moral policing has become quite a norm in the country especially in the digital spaces. People are observed to misinterpret their right to freedom of expression as an opportunity to interfere in others’ lives, and to impose their own moral values on others while being insensitive towards their situation and circumstances.
The increased judgmental remarks and moral policing has made the internet an unsafe place for Pakistani women, where different tools and technologies are repeatedly weaponized to harass, shame and silence women, recreating oppressions and patriarchal power structures that have enacted violence on women’s body and freedoms for centuries.
Men being socially, culturally and politically powerful in Pakistan, abuse their power and privilege to tell women what is good or bad for them, what is bringing them an increased backlash from the opposite gender in the form of physical and sexual violence, and what is the reason behind them not acing at work despite working the same as a male counterpart etc. The moral police believes that it is a moral responsibility to surveil women to keep them at the right place.
Moreover, moral policing is a manifestation of extra-legal mob justice. In most cases, it is the men doing moral policing whenever they “feel” that women are getting out of control and are not preserving the traditional ethos and culture. But since their concerns cannot be enforced through legal means (e.g., X cannot make a complaint to the police that a woman is smoking at a public place), they take the matter in their own hands and start hate speech against women.
Women stepping outside traditional gender roles are shamed for their choices by this technology-enabled moral policing, instead of being celebrated for breaking barriers. Another downside of the moral policing culture is that victim blaming has normalized in the country. Whenever a crime is committed against a woman, the society always manages to place the blame on the victim for not adhering to the societies’ ‘perceived’ moral rules and regulations, e.g., women being raped is justified saying that they were not appropriately dressed, or why did they go out at an unusual time etc.
Unfortunately, the self-proclaimed moral regulators currently stalking the internet fail miserably when it comes to ‘exposing’ the real issues. Matters like gender indiscrimination, rising extremism, intolerance, and sectarianism etc., which need to be immediately highlighted on such forums for their large-scale resolution, are mainly ignored by the group. Moreover, the groups’ inclination largely towards finding flaws in and correcting females and ignoring the heinousness that men of the country openly exhibit, has nurtured misogyny and sexism in the society to such an extent that women aren’t even safe in their own homes and skins, and are made to feel worthless and errant at every point of time.
It is high time to regulate and transform the cybersphere by implementing a cyber-legal-framework which draws lines for digital usage ethics along with sensitizing the general public about the differences between free speech and hate speech. Enlightening the masses about the negative implications of such talks on others’ personalities can be an effective way of catering the issue of unsolicited moral policing, as it has huge negative impacts on mental as well as physical health. Educating the users about the true purpose of social media platforms along with highlighting stories where social media was used to create a difference can make an impact in changing public perception and use of digital space.
The author Laraib Nisar is a Defense and Strategic Studies’ graduate, working as a Program Coordinator at Center for Research and Security Studies (CRSS), Islamabad.
