Foreign Minister announced that Pakistani creators can now earn money of their Facebook content, following a visit to Meta’s Asia Pacific headquarters in Singapore.
Pakistani creators can now earn money of their Facebook (FB) content, Foreign Minister announced on Twitter explained that content creators can use the new Facebook Stars feature to monetize their content, which has gone live. Foreign Minister announced following a visit to multinational technology conglomerate Meta‘s Asia Pacific headquarters in Singapore.
He called it “big news” and said he was the first Pakistan official to visit Meta. How the feature works is that the more stars you get, the more money you can earn. The Facebook Stars feature allows you to monetize your video content, photo posts, and text posts. Viewers can buy Stars and send them to you while you’re live or for on-demand videos that have Stars enabled.
The FM hoped that the youth of Pakistan in particular will get more productive use out of their social media through this new feature. He also highlighted how the feature helps create opportunities for women and the youth amid economic setbacks.
The foreign minister was on a two-day visit to Singapore at the invitation of his Singaporean counterpart. Earlier, he also met Singapore President and held a breakfast meeting with Foreign Minister. During his meetings with President and FM , the Pakistan Foreign Minister emphasised the importance accorded by Pakistan to its relations with Singapore, which is a key partner in ASEAN.
The two foreign ministers noted the importance of regular interaction and dialogue, exchange of high-level visits and to promote people-to-people contacts. They agreed to unlock the potential for economic cooperation and collaborate in agriculture, digital economy and digital finance. They exchanged views on the regional situation and agreed to stay engaged to promote mutually beneficial cooperation.
Foreign Minister said that “We are encouraged to see Meta’s contribution in supporting local businesses in Pakistan and opening up different ways for Pakistani content creators to generate meaningful, reliable revenue on their platforms. We hope the Stars program will create new opportunities to monetize facebook content and play a role in strengthening the country’s digital economy.”
In another feat for the development of Pakistan’s tech industry, Alphabet unit Google registered itself as a company for the first time in the Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan (SECP), paving way for other multi-national companies to open offices in the country.
The tech giant, based in the United States, registered itself with the SECP as in line with the “Removal and Blocking of Unlawful Online Content (Procedure, Oversight and Safeguards) Rules, 2021”, social media companies had to open offices in the country.
Minister for Information Technology and Telecommunication said following the registration of the American multinational technology company, other social media platforms will also establish offices in Pakistan.
“TikTok will soon set up its office in Pakistan. Companies remain reluctant due to the lack of trust and inconsistent policies,” he had said while maintaining that his ministry will offer complete support to foreign companies.
Pakistan’s government, as per social media rules, has made registration mandatory for companies and Google registered itself as a company in this context.
Data will be safe if Google’s server is built in Pakistan. Even now, data of all companies including social media gets stored outside Pakistan.
Originally published at The News