A significant increase in the trend of publicizing the election campaign through social media

Lahore: After the 2018 elections in Pakistan, there has been a significant increase in the trend of publicizing election campaigns and party narratives through social media, social media has now become a necessity for every political party to reach the common man.

For the election campaign of Election 2024, political parties and candidates are using social media more than in the past and huge amounts of money are also being spent on it, but the Election Commission has the authority to check the expenditure of campaigning on social media. There is no mechanism.

Elections are a few weeks away and political parties are busy with election campaigns. In today’s social media age, with social media campaigning being preferred over traditional methods of election campaigning, political campaigning through digital media has become extremely important for the modern-day digital voter.

All the political parties including Muslim League (N), Tehreek-e-Insaf, PPP, Jamaat-e-Islami, Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam, MQM have set up their social media wings and millions of rupees are being spent while all the political and Religious parties are making full use of social media for election campaigns. Last month, PTI has also held a virtual meeting for the first time.

Apart from the central social media wing, national and provincial assembly candidates have also formed their own social media teams locally. who share posts and videos about the candidate’s activities, including clips of the party leadership’s speeches, on Facebook, Instagram and above all, WhatsApp.

According to social media experts, there are two methods of running an advertising campaign on social media, first is to share your message, advertisement video and images on your social media account like Facebook, X, Instagram and YouTube without any payment while Another method is to increase the reach of your post by spending money. You have to pay according to reach and duration to boost your post. Fees for boosting a post can range from five dollars a day to thousands of dollars.

According to the 2023 report of Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA), 87.35 million people use the Internet in the country, while the number of social media users is 71.70 million, which is 30.1 percent of the total population of Pakistan. 73% of social media users are male and 27% are female.

According to PTA, Pakistan has the highest internet usage at 56.3% for Facebook. 20.48 percent of WhatsApp users, 11.76 percent of Snapchat users, 5.38 percent of Instagram users and 1.76 percent of Twitter users, while 39 percent of Internet users use YouTube and 15.71 percent of Tik Tok users.

Election Commission spokesperson Nadeem Haider told The Express Tribune that candidates for the National Assembly can spend up to Rs.

He said that the candidates are required to open a new bank account for election campaign expenses or if they want to use an existing bank account, to submit the bank details and bank statement to the concerned rating officer before starting the election campaign. Will submit. Election advertising, be it newspapers, TV ads, poster printing or social media, has a fixed expenditure limit but no category has been created for the expenditure.

Nadeem Haider also said that if a supporter or relative of a candidate runs his advertisement campaign, then the candidate will be responsible for it and it will be assumed by him. I will submit.

Asad Baig, founder-chairman of the non-governmental organization Media Matters for Democracy, says the Election Commission can monitor TV or print advertising campaigns, but they have no mechanism to monitor social media.

He said that if a candidate creates a social media cell or an election campaign is conducted on social media with external funding, especially if someone sits abroad and conducts the election campaign of a political party or candidate in Pakistan from there, then the election The Commission has no mechanism to monitor it.

He said that for the last five years, they have been saying that the Election Commission should make a plan for social media campaign, but no plan has been made yet. He further said that the main factor in this is the funding of social media campaigns from abroad. Some of the social media trends that he has observed are that a political party’s political campaign has been run from outside.

Asad Baig said that one of his main concerns is hate and inflammatory speech and content that is shared on social media, for which there is a need for self-regulation by political parties. He further said that it is the responsibility of the Election Commission to monitor spending on advertising campaigns to check where the money for any digital campaign is coming from and who is running it.

Atif Rauf Rana, head of social media of PML-N, did not give any response when contacted several times regarding the strategy adopted by PML-N for running the election campaign on the social media front. However, PML-N Punjab Information Secretary Azmi Zahid Bukhari says that the power and importance of social media cannot be denied. The use of social media for political activities is increasing, rather it has become a necessity. He said that huge amount of money is spent for advertising on social media.

He said that Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) had made this design long ago and that is why they are at the forefront of social media. Most of their (PTI) followers are sitting abroad who are sitting there promoting their party through social media and propagandizing against their opponents, even these people have campaigned against the country and the national institutions of the country. kept

Azmi Zahid Bukhari says that the social media situation is a waste of money, the more money you invest, the more views you can get, the more post reach you can increase. He said that the Muslim League-N has formed teams from the center to the provincial assembly constituency, while volunteers have also been included. But our policy is clear that we will use any social media properly. Boosts will not be applied to increase post reach and views and will not cost a single penny for this task.

During the PDM regime, there were reports that the coalition government had spent 10 billion rupees for media advertising, of which 1 billion 23 crore rupees were for social media, but Azmi Bukhari says that her party has There is no money for charity, zakat and charity to spend money like this on social media.

Similarly, among religious political parties, Jamaat-e-Islami is the most active on social media. Jamaat-e-Islami has since many years established a complete social media wing where dozens of youths are working. Jamaat-e-Islami spokesperson and Central Information Secretary Qaiser Sharif said that Jamaat-e-Islami had established a social media wing more or less 10 years ago and today there are social media teams at the center, provinces and up to the Union Council level.

He said that for the use of social media, SOPs have been fixed with the approval of the Jamaat’s Shura, under which inappropriate and derogatory posts will be made against anyone and such comments are not allowed.

He said that more than three thousand social media workers have been trained. A regular budget is kept every year for the social media wing which is very limited. Budget is allocated for purchase of computers, cameras, internet, production and drones. He said that his core social media team consists of more than 25 people, including women, including cameramen, drone operators, NLEs, script writers and others. A large-scale digital media campaign is also being prepared for the election.