Algorithmic moderation and the shadow-ban dilemma

By Ali Abbas Pakistan’s Higher Education Commission (HEC) new weighted research policy has surely raised an eyebrow among a few academics nationwide. Before further dissecting the policy and its implications, it is pertinent to understand the role of HEC as a regulatory authority, which can help clear the air to a greater extent. As stated, “Regulatory”, it is important to accept that the Higher Education Commission of Pakistan is there to implement quality checks irrespective of the decision being popular or unpopular. So, with this lens, it is easy to understand why HEC is weighing this bold step of assigning weights to authorship and what must have been the shortcomings in the previous policy, despite the earlier policy’s apparent benefits. The new policy values first authors and corresponding authors more, acknowledging a reward for the initiators and potential stakeholders in the event that there are more than 3 authors. While HEC is not stopping co-authorship, it aims to credit researchers who have genuine contributions and are adding value as a lead or major contributor. It is entirely up to contributors to choose the number of other co-authors and their desired contribution and commitment in the research article. In fact, this should rather be seen as a measure of transparency that researchers who are expecting to get fewer marks for co-authorship will be doing less work in contrast to the first author. That can actually act as a yardstick for them to allocate their time to multiple projects to get their respective share/ count. However, not to undermine the researchers whose genuine intent surrounds a higher number of publications in less time with real contribution, it is a welcoming sign for authors who stay away from relationship-based and aided research. So, HEC, being a quality custodian of education and research practices for HEIs, has come up with a stance to curb research mills, fraudulent research, and fake authorship, where publications in friends’ journals and contributions following quid pro quo are compensated. And one never knows when these researchers who have worked as co-authors or fall last in the author list make it to the classes; their share of knowledge and impact may be a concern at times as well. The problem is even bigger, as not only papers with 20+ authors can be found, but researchers are co-authoring in different fields that may be beyond cross-domain collaboration. This is where HEC might have to respond and find this weighted policy as damage control.  Well, this research’s credibility is not Pakistan’s dilemma only, but something that is a world issue in a higher education setting. And when HEC addresses these concerns, it might act as a benchmark for other nations’ education systems, especially for the education and accreditation councils of similar demographics. Whether one favors or opposes it, HEC has devised something that raises major concerns, and that is to curb the need to distinguish between real and fake contributors. Now comes the point of demotivating international contributions from this weighted system, as raised by the affected prospective contributors. Well, though not every policy can avoid its collateral, the overall gain may be exploited as well. It is to be remembered that international collaborators are not to be linked with those weights; they can continue to collaborate at any number in the author list as they used to be, i.e., first or second or third, etc. In this case, the logic for local authors will remain the same as stated above about their respective contributions and rewards. The time and effort can then help in identifying multiple avenues as well. Again, there are always two sides to a coin, and in the current dynamics, where co-authorship has appeared to be a business deal, the side with the assigned weights policy bears more weight. Also, on the other hand, the offset can be made by allocating funds and instructing HEIs to devote funding to Gold open access, thus accelerating the pace of the first-author research. All in all, the new policy hints at increasing competitiveness and research credibility while leaving it to the test of time to see if it turns out to be a value addition for researchers by choice or by chance. About the author: Ali Abbas, PhD, works at Beaconhouse National University. He can be reached at aabbas724@gmail.com

By Manahil Pasha The women in Pakistan has a limited access towards financial independence for generations. Opening a bank account, purchase of property, willingness to travel have all been monitored by male family members for most women. Receiving money for daily or necessary use means being dependent on another member of the house. The era has gradually changed with the growth in Pakistan’s fintech ecosystem. After the availability of digital payments methods, mobile wallets and ease of not having to visit banks with cashless banking, some things are rapidly changing. This has opened up new opportunities for a number of women across the country in the formal digitally optimized economy. Barriers for women remain but the user friendly mobile wallets are gradually improving how women receive or save money. Fintech ecosystem in Pakistan is not just technology but it is about financial inclusion. According to the Karandaaz Financial Inclusion Survey (K-FIS) 2024, 14% of Pakistani women have access to a regulated financial account compared with 56% of men while just 11% of women own a mobile wallet compared to 48% of men. This highlights a clear gender gap in Pakistan’s fintech ecosystem which could be due to lack of basic financial education, access to digital resources or cultural norms. Fintech is now paving path to address traditional challenges for women including access to digital financial tools, mobility, maintaining credit history or wanting to be financially independent by lending or saving money. Where conventional banks require customers to visit branches for account opening, mobile wallets give easy access to create accounts through their phones. All facilities like paying utility bills, receiving salaries or making vendor payments is now easier than ever. Many women in Pakistan has an entrepreneurial spirit and are running their microbusinesses across multiple villages, small towns and communities. Some sell clothing, handicrafts or even baked goods on a regular basis to make ends meet but lack financial education to invest and multiply their money for growth and expansion. However, fintech facilitates women with receiving money in digital wallets instead of cash or male members’ bank accounts. International research also suggests that women who adopt mobile money services are significantly more likely to access formal financial systems particularly when combined with education and mobile phone ownership. Fintech is not limited to ease in digital payments. Fintech ecosystem increases transparency, reduces risks of carrying cash or theft, helps understand formal methods of saving and investing money. For women receiving salaries or government support do not rely on another person to receive their deserved money but has access to receive and manage their money on their own. According to the World Bank’s latest Global Findex research, receiving wages or government payments digitally is often the first reason many women open a financial account. Pakistan is gradually moving towards financial inclusion but understanding technology is not the only barrier. Many hindrances lie outside of technology starting with the limited use or access to smart phones, approximately 82% of Pakistani men own a mobile phone while only 46% of women do creating a significant divide. Digital literacy is another challenge that comes with lack of education on the safe use of mobile wallets around scams and frauds. Pakistan has gradually progressed in financial ecosystem and has been supported by policy makers with regulations to accelerate financial inclusion. Pakistan and private fintech sector has taken initiatives encouraging digital payments, delivering financial education, introducing cashless services while encouraging mobile wallets. However, better initiatives are needed around financial education on mobile wallets, designing products around women needs and ease which includes formal educational trainings, low-cost saving products or multilingual apps to cover provincial and regionally spoken and understood languages. Building trust, empowering women and developing a digital ecosystem are all equally important for the financial inclusion in Pakistan.

Hani Rasheed Through the pages of your esteemed newspaper, I wish to highlight the importance of freedom in our society. Freedom is not a luxury or a favour; it is a basic right of every human being. People deserve the freedom to express their opinions, choose their future and live with dignity. Unfortunately, many people still face restrictions, fear and injustice when they raise their voices. When freedom is suppressed, society loses hope and progress comes to a standstill. A nation cannot truly develop if its people are afraid to speak the truth. The government and society must protect the rights and freedom of citizens. Freedom should be used responsibly, but no one should be silenced through injustice or fear. It is time to understand that protecting freedom means protecting the future of our nation. I hope your newspaper will highlight this important issue and encourage the authorities to protect the fundamental rights of the people

By Mehreen Imambaksh Throughout history, women have possessed powerful thoughts, deep emotions, and creative voices; yet, many of these voices have gone unnoticed. Their experiences were frequently limited to their homes, their abilities were questioned, and their intellectual development was neglected. However, literature, history, and social thought expose that women were capable of uttering knowledge, shaping culture, and influencing society, but patriarchal systems often restricted their visibility. For centuries, women were expected to remain silent in public intellectual areas. Their role was widely limited to household responsibilities, whereas education, authorship, and public speaking were dominated by men. Yet despite these barriers, many women endured to write, think, and challenge the systems that tried to silence them. One beautiful example can be found in the nineteenth century with the eminent novel *Wuthering Heights*, written by Emily Brontë (1847). Today the novel is considered one of the masterpieces in English literature. Moreover, Emily Brontë did not publish it under her original name; rather, she used the pen name Ellis Bell. Similarly, her sisters also adopted the same approaches. Charlotte Brontë published *Jane Eyre* under the name of Currer Bell, and Anne Brontë published *The Tenant of Wildfell Hall* under the name of Acton Bell. The reason behind these pen names was simple but widely revealing: society frequently refused to take women writers seriously. The Brontë sisters were highly imaginative and intellectually able, yet they felt pressured to hide their identities to ensure their work could be approved. Their circumstances examine the huge restrictions placed upon women’s voices during that time. Long before the Brontë sisters, early feminist thinkers had raised concerns about women’s lack of education and freedom. In 1792, Mary Wollstonecraft wrote *A Vindication of the Rights of Woman*, challenging that women should have equal access to education and intellectual opportunities. She said that women were treated as inferior in society not because they lacked capability, but because they were refused the chance to advance their minds. More than a century later, this problem was discussed again by Virginia Woolf in her masterpiece work *A Room of One’s Own* (1929). She famously argued that women in the past were refused both financial independence and private space, which restricted them from freely uttering knowledge. Therefore, she said a woman needs not merely talent but also freedom and equality to express her feelings and thoughts. Modern scholars have further examined how systems of knowledge can silence subaltern voices. In her essay “Can the Subaltern Speak?” (1988), Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak introduced the idea of epistemic violence, which means how dominant systems of knowledge remove or suppress the voices of certain groups, especially women and colonized communities. When women’s ideas are ignored or removed, their experiences are excluded from the production of knowledge, creating a form of intellectual oppression. These rooted examples depict that women’s silence was never because of a lack of intelligence or creativity. Instead, it was the result of social systems that demotivated or limited their role in participation in intellectual and public life. Even today, this evidence remains visible in many societies. In many cultures, women still hesitate to talk openly, particularly on public platforms or digital spaces. Furthermore, social expectations and fear of judgment frequently create unseen obstacles that prevent women from sharing their thoughts and feelings. This hesitation is not always enforced directly; sometimes it evolves internally due to long-standing social pressures. Moreover, I personally experienced this hesitation in my own life. For many years, I believed in the significance of women’s ability, yet I was not actively immersed in initiatives related to it. One cause for this was my anxiety about visibility on social media platforms to reveal my feelings and ideas because I feared how society, especially as a Baloch student, might react to a woman openly sharing her ideas. This anxiety is not unfamiliar. Many women feel unsure about expressing themselves publicly because they expect critique or misunderstanding. However, personal growth frequently begins with a small step. For me, that step was creating my social media platforms such as Medium, a LinkedIn profile, and starting to share my writings, including poems and reflections based on my experiences. At the start, this act felt common, yet slowly opened new chances. Through this visibility, I became connected with extensive intellectual and professional networks, which ultimately led me to become immersed in women’s ascension. Being involved in this initiative has allowed me to interact with women from various cultures, backgrounds, and perspectives. These interactions have been widely improving. They have shown me that when women communicate and share experiences across cultures, they create unique forms of understanding and collective growth. This experience shows that women’s empowerment does not always happen through major changes, but it begins slowly when women start to express themselves, engage in conversations, and share knowledge with others. Communication is one of the influential tools that helps women to connect their personal experiences with global discussions about equality and justice. However, change needs cooperation. Women’s power should not be seen as an effort between men and women. Instead, it should be perceived as a collaborative struggle to create a fair and inclusive society. Both men and women play a major role in supporting and motivating women’s voices. Traditionally, patriarchal societies frequently reduced women to limited roles, especially examining their function as a child-bearing machine. Whereas motherhood is an essential and valuable role, it should never define the entirety of a woman’s identity. Women have intellectual capabilities, creative skills, and leadership qualities that can contribute importantly to society. Education plays an essential role in changing these circumstances. When women receive education, they gain the confidence and knowledge necessary to contribute actively in social, economic, and intellectual life. Educated women are more capable of expressing their thoughts, challenging injustice, and participating in the development of their communities. Furthermore, the impact of women’s education extends beyond the individual. When women are educated, they can brighten their children’s lives and motivate the next generations to learn. Historically, when women