Pakistan bans Chinese app TikTok over unlawful content
11 October, 2020
Pakistan blocked the Chinese social media iphone app TikTok, saying the business failed to fully adhere to instructions to develop an effective mechanism to regulate unlawful content.
In a statement, the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority said on Friday that it took the step after receiving complaints against “immoral and indecent” content on the video-sharing platform.
The PTA said that keeping because the complaints and nature of this content being regularly posted on TikTok, the business was issued a final notice and given considerable time to respond and comply with instructions and guidelines.
But TikTok “didn't fully adhere to PTA’s instructions”, and the authority made a decision to ban it in Pakistan.
Soon after the ban, the app began showing a blank interface without text or images loading.
Pakistan has close relations with China.
The telecommunication authority kept the entranceway open for a return of TikTok, saying “it really is open for engagement” and would review its decision if TikTok develops a mechanism to moderate this content.
TikTok has been a target of several complaints and court petitions calling because of its ban in Pakistan. In July, PTA said it had issued a “final warning” to the business to eliminate “obscene and immoral content”.
Pakistani TikTok celebrity Hareem Shah, who has a lot more than four million followers on the app, said the government's known reasons for the ban on the favorite Chinese video-sharing platform were “unfounded”.
“This talk of it being truly a platform for ‘indecent/immoral content’ is totally unfounded,” she said, speaking with the press in the location of Karachi.
She added that such government actions could cause further encroachment on imaginative liberties in the united states.
“It is a very good iphone app for entertainment. It showcases the talent of the youth of Pakistan in front of the whole world," she said of TikTok.
The video-sharing app, which is owned by China’s ByteDance, is the third-most downloaded app in the last year after WhatsApp and Facebook and has been downloaded almost 39 million times in Pakistan.
The software was earlier banned by India and the United States for violating guidelines.
Source: www.thenational.ae