n May 7, when India attacked nine sites across six cities in Pakistan, Pakistanis woke up to X, formerly Twitter, being accessible without a VPN, after over a year of being blocked in the country. The decision was taken with the same lack of transparency as when the ban was imposed. The Pakistan Telecommunication Authority acknowledged the unblocking, offering no reasoning. This comes after a year of obfuscation, denials and non-answers from the PTA. Recently, the Lahore High Court had expressed ire towards the PTA. Justice Ali Zia Bajwa was quoted as saying, “You have imposed a ban, yet you are using the platform yourself?”

As the fog of war and the hysteria surrounding it start to settle, critical questions persist about our access to essential information, especially during crucial periods of heightened hostilities or elections and the arbitrariness with which it can be taken away.

On the other side of the border, censorship was rampant. Platforms such as The Wire and Maktoob were banned in India. X’s Global Government Affairs team announced that it had received executive orders from the Indian government to block over 8,000 accounts, including news organisations and prominent users, for violating local laws. The orders also noted that X would face potential penalties, including fines and imprisonment of the company’s local employees. No specific posts were identified, nor were reasons provided in most cases. The social media company said that while it disagreed with the Indian government’s executive orders, it would comply by withholding those accounts in India. No list of accounts withheld was provided. X said that while it wanted to make these orders public, it could not at the time due to “legal restrictions.” Given the lack of transparency by the company and the Indian government, it is hard to tell, but anecdotal evidence suggests that many of these accounts belonged to Pakistani users and Indian accounts critical of the Indian government. Ironically, according to users within India, the post stating all this from X’s Global Government Affairs account was also withheld in India.

X was not the only platform to do so. After the Pahalgam attack and in the lead up to the attack on Pakistan, Meta restricted accounts of Pakistani celebrities in India. The PTA also announced in a press release on May 7 that it had blocked 16 Indian YouTube news channels, 31 YouTube video links and 32 websites for disseminating so-called “false information and anti-Pakistan propaganda.” Like their Indian counterparts, the Pakistani authorities gave no complete list of the platforms blocked and the specific reasons for the action.

It is ironic that these decisions were taken in the name of tackling false news and propaganda, while accounts and platforms peddling rampant misinformation remained online and even thrived as people turned to online sources to understand what was going on. Social media platforms, acceding to government requests to restrict accounts, have massively cut funding for fact-checking. Earlier this year, Meta announced that it would no longer use third-party fact-checkers on its platforms, instead leaning into the community notes model that X has. These decisions, complying with government requests while culling fact-checking capacities, do not bode well for the future. The escalation in tensions last week gave way to rampant misinformation – news of purported radiation leaks in Pakistan, deep fakes of the DG ISPR and persistent speculation among Pakistani social media users that the country had captured a pilot from the Indian Air Force. In the absence of robust fact-checking, these claims continue to be believed by a significant number of people on both sides.

While the Pakistani state thanked “cyber warriors” for their part in backing the military and its operations, the declaration was fundamentally unsettling, as the same authorities had recently passed amendments to the already draconian Prevention of Electronic Crimes Act and lamented ‘anti-state’ propaganda online. As we move forward, critical questions remain regarding the arbitrariness with which platforms are blocked and unblocked. Freedom of expression is not a privilege to be earned based on what is deemed as good behaviour by the state; it is a right.

In addition to the disinformation ecosystem, both countries were operating in parallel information environments, fuelled by algorithms and government-imposed restrictions. Pakistani users saw only the most inflammatory content from the Indian side – more likely to go viral – and vice versa. Voices calling for peace or dialogue were drowned out by the sheer loudness of jingoism and war mongering. At a time when we needed progressive voices to be amplified and the human cost of war to be centred, online platforms rewarded outrage. Social media has fundamentally changed the way we consume information in times of crisis. The role of tech giants and their algorithms cannot be understated.

The writer is a researcher and campaigner on human and digital rights issues