I am a journalist working on rights x tech. I focus on digital rights and corporate accountability, helping civil society organisations, newsrooms, and independent research firms investigate, verify, and report on how tech platforms centralise and wield power.
For 3+ years at Media Matters for Democracy, a prominent digital rights and media literacy nonprofit in Pakistan, I led the Digital Rights & Internet Governance (DRIG) programme. I also co-led Facter, a voluntary digital investigation initiative for newsrooms. Under DRIG, I managed MMfD’s flagship publication, Digital Rights Monitor (DRM); mapped civil society interventions for corporate accountability across Asia and the MENA region for an internal scoping paper; drafted winning proposals for regional and international digital rights events, including Digital Rights Asia-Pacific Assembly (DRAPAC) and RightsCon; and led panels on platform moderation, Big Tech x journalism, and fact-checking in Thailand and Taiwan. For Facter, I ran secondary fact-checking on content flagged across social media; trained a team of investigators in verification and editorial standards; and authored a style guide that kept our published work consistent and defensible. I also conceptualised and executed the #RestoreX campaign against the arbitrary suspension of X following the 2024 general elections in Pakistan. #RestoreX remains the longest-running digital campaign by a nonprofit in the country. I am a two-time DRAPAC fellow.
My work on platform accountability, technology-facilitated gender-based violence (TFGBV), internet censorship, and disinformation has been carried by Digital Rights Monitor (DRM), Association for Progressive Communications (APC), GenderIT, IFEX, and Dawn. I have reviewed and edited five research publications commissioned by IFEX and UNESCO.
I am now focused on where my journalistic and advocacy expertise meets AI: content policy and safety evaluations for automated systems, with a particular focus on platform moderation and broader gendered implications of AI.
Last year brought severe challenges for civil society, which continues to grapple with the aftershocks of sweeping funding cuts and debilitating constraints. Thousands of jobs vanished overnight.…
When tech corporations announce layoffs, the accompanying linguistic framing is almost always sanitised: restructuring, optimisation, strategic reallocation, etc. But what disappears beneath these euphemisms is the…
In 2012, at a time when Mensur had no trusted companion except himself, social media provided him with an outlet for self-expression in ways he could hardly have imagined. Living through sexual…
We had seen it coming. The United States — which projects itself as the torchbearer of “free speech” around the world — has set another dangerous precedent by finally approving a regressive piece…
The internet has revolutionised the communications infrastructure around the world. Bringing distant and diverse communities closer together and bridging the gap between territorial boundaries, it…
A resource pack for journalists on ethical election reporting, published by Media Matters for Democracy in December 2023.
Salwa Rana
A study of the international legal frameworks and landmark case law on free speech, and why criminal defamation laws are being replaced by civil remedies around the world.
Yasir Abbas
An examination of the legal framework governing digital and electronic media in Pakistan, including PEMRA and PECA, with a comparative look at the regional landscape.
Media Matters for Democracy (MMfD) showcased its collaborative digital investigation tool “Facter” at the Digital Rights Asia-Pacific Assembly 2024 (DRAPAC24) on August 18, 2024, in Taipei, Taiwan. The initiative was…
Media Matters for Democracy (MMfD), a leading media development organisation in Pakistan focusing on Media and Information Literacy, digital rights, and media sustainability, has launched ‘Facter,’ a collaborative…
December 27, 2023: Media Matters for Democracy (MMfD) held a capacity-building event, titled ‘Scrapathon: Scraping Electoral Disinformation’, from 26-27 December, 2023, in Karachi. Launched in partnership with the…
