Pakistan announced that the newly adopted law will help the government monitor and mitigate online content that has to do with "terrorism, extremism, hate speech, fake news, incitement to violence and national security."

Critics of the new rules, however, say the government paves the way to mass censorship, Deutsche Welle writes.

The law is called "Citizens Protection (Against Online Harm) Rules, 2020" and obliges Internet giants such as Facebook, Twitter and Google to remove or block posts that are considered objectionable by the government, DW reported. Authorities are also allowed to request data from the internet companies who posted the posts.

"The worrying part for me is that the definition of extremism, religion or culture is so wide and ambiguous and that means they have unfettered power to call any online content illegal or extremist or anti-state," Nighat Dad of the Pakistan's Digital Rights Foundation (DSF) told Reuters news agency.

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