Recently, a YouTuber called Ducky Bhai was released from custody by the National Cyber Crime Investigation Agency (NCCIA). Ducky Bhai, whose real name is Saadur Rehman, had been arrested allegedly on the grounds that he had been promoting gambling and betting apps through his YouTube channel, which currently has 9.81 million subscribers. A serious charge in a serious society (at least in these matters).
Ducky Bhai was kept in custody for over three months. Upon his release, he released a video, over 50 minutes long, and which has been viewed over 15 million times. Here he alleged that he had been subjected to physical abuse by certain NICCIA officials during custody, who also defrauded him of hundreds of thousands of dollars from his Binance account.
Talking to his followers on YouTube was a way not only to present his side of the story, but also to draw attention to the harm he had suffered and urge some support which there was no shortage of. There was widespread condemnation of this treatment. YouTube, which was alleged to be the site of Ducky Bhai’s supposed crimes, also became the platform where he could highlight the inexcusable overreaches he had been subject to.
The double-edgedness of social media platforms aside, the case of Ducky Bhai illustrates the power YouTube has of reaching audiences and forming communities. Although short-form content like YouTube shorts has also taken over the platform, they are not a very good match for the longer format videos which allow for deeper interactions than the reels you barely spend half a minute on, and then scroll on to the next.
Independent YouTubers – those who are not TV or Entertainment or official channels of institutes like the PCB or the ISPR – work a lot to carefully curate and create these communities. They have a logic of their own, a community and politics to match that. But perhaps most important of all is the fact that these ecosystems allow people who don’t have much more than a smartphone and a software to edit videos to earn money from what they create. The content varies in quality, but whatever it is, more of it is being produced, and people are consuming more of it.
However, Pakistan’s relationship with YouTube – on the whole – has been fraught with state censorship which has often derailed the population’s access to the website and its contents. Despite that, the rising number of YouTube users and independent content creators in Pakistan has spawned its own economies and rapidly changed the way the platform has been viewed and used. The content in this publication is expensive to produce. But unlike other journalistic outfits, business publications have to cover the very organizations that directly give them advertisements. Hence, this large source of revenue, which is the lifeblood of other media houses, is severely compromised on account of Profit’s no-compromise policy when it comes to our reporting. No wonder, Profit has lost multiple ad deals, worth tens of millions of rupees, due to stories that held big businesses to account. Hence, for our work to continue unfettered, it must be supported by discerning readers who know the value of quality business journalism, not just for the economy but for the society as a whole.To read the full article, subscribe and support independent business journalism in Pakistan
