echnology these days is not evolving leisurely but progressing at break-neck speed. This unprecedented velocity is causing more disruptions than anything else. Media is at the receiving end too. No one really knows what the future holds.

Technological advances were supposed to further free speech and media freedom. Ironically, however, even the short-lived freedoms have been overtaken by hastily enacted legislation in many a country. The world is unmistakably moving towards more authoritarianism with less regard for rule of law.

Governments in many countries are exploring ways to regulate social media although specific laws and regulations vary widely. Despite being the world’s strictest regime for online content, China has rolled out its Cybersecurity Law and Minors Protection Law, which place restrictions on what children can be shown online. In Australia, social media has been banned for users under 16. In 2018, Belgium enacted a law requiring children to be at least 13 years old to create a social media account without parental permission.

This shows that the international community is concerned about the use of social media by the youth. In Pakistan, the concern is for everyone. With legacy media restrained comfortably, the effort is on to tame the social media. The scare created by the Prevention of Electronic Crimes Act has brought down rumours and mudslinging to some extent, but it has also cut down on voiced dissent and free speech. Many Pakistanis are now scared to share even an innocent meme in a WhatsApp group.

Governments and other actors are increasingly using technology to monitor and censor the press. This can include tracking journalists’ communications, blocking access to news websites and arresting journalists for their reporting. A journalist associated with a digital news platform got picked up in a Vego-led operation recently in Islamabad in the middle of the night, apparently on account of his social media activism. The authorities could have definitely skipped the hullabaloo by raising the matter with his seniors, but did not choose that path.

Instead of soul searching or self-correcting measures, the authorities are now quick to blame the media for their problems.

The social media platforms that once raised hopes of a technological revolution, seem lost. During a hearing in the US, Facebook’s parent company Meta displayed a chart showing that “the share of the time spent viewing content posted by ‘friends’ has declined from 22 to 17 percent on Facebook and from 11 to seven percent on Instagram in the last two years.” People are spending less time on, once topmost social platforms, to know what their friends and foes are up to. As Kyle Chaka wrote “social media has become less social.”

The ease with which false information can be created and spread online makes it tough for the public to distinguish between credible news and propaganda. This has eroded trust in the media.

The fact that major social media platforms are losing their monopoly on personal social networking services has a serious implication for digital news platforms; of whom some spent a huge chuck of their time and resources on building their presence on these platforms. From the struggle for the last two decades to get views or clicks at these platforms, they have gone to worrying what to do next. Some are rejoicing the fact that they did not place all their eggs in the same basket. However, the general trend is people losing interest in the news.

According to the Digital News Report 2024, approximately 39 percent of people worldwide actively avoid the news – sometimes or often – compared to 29 percent in 2017. The youth in Pakistan are informed but not by regular news sources. They have other outlets and formats they engage with. Female engagement is alarmingly lower. The audiences for several older types of news media are shrinking.

Even now technological aspects often decide what goes viral. Video-wise digital platforms have spent years of hard work to master 16x9 aspect ratio, but now vertical format – reels, shorts etc – rule. Much of what Twitter initially did to text through a tweet of 144 characters, TikTok has done to video. People are made to consume more because of short durations and so, they remember less. Hence, we have lost impactful journalism.

Getting someone to notice your hard, genuine, balanced journalistic work has become very difficult, if not impossible. The glut of individual, state-sponsored private and public websites and channels has made it difficult for the end user to decide what to watch and what to let go. This is topped by social media algorithms and search engines that try to reinforce users’ bias by showing them the same kind of content.

But when it comes to technological change, troll armies are quick to adapt. They have the resources and the freedom to not follow journalistic ethics. The ease with which false information can be created and spread online makes it tough for the public to distinguish between credible news and propaganda. This has eroded trust in the media. Some journalists’ questionable behaviour of switching between a political analyst and a journalist has tarnished the image of the media. The shift towards commentary rather than fact, many experts believe, has contributed to the declining trust.

The traditional business model for news channels in Pakistan and the world over is under economic pressure from the rise of the internet. Many were not investing much in generating quality visual content anyway, but the practice continues unchanged despite the changing needs. This has led to job losses and a further decline in the quality of journalism.

Artificial intelligence has thrown up new challenges for the media. AI is still learning and is therefore frequently inaccurate. In Pakistan, we have yet to make sure it is transparent and figure out how it can be utilised efficiently – not to compromise on jobs but to help produce better content.

The writer, a journalist for 33 years, has been an editor at the BBC in Pakistan for over two decades. Currently, he is the managing editor at Independent Urdu