TikTok Banned in Pakistan for ‘Immoral and Indecent Content'
By Andrew Griffin
TikTok has been banned in Pakistan over its failure to filter out “immoral and indecent” content, according to the country’s telecommunication authority.
Pakistan becomes just the latest country to take action against the viral video app, which governments from India and Australia to the US have cracked down on. Concerns have ranged from privacy and security about the Chinese owners of the app to the nature of the content being shared.
Officials said that the ban in Pakistan had been undertaken because of the nature of the content being posted on the app.
"In view of number of complaints from different segments of the society against immoral and indecent content on the video sharing application TikTok, Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) has issued instructions for blocking of the application," it said in a statement.
The PTA said that it had issued a final notice to the company, in view of the “complaints and nature of the content being consistently posted on TikTok”. The government issued a “final warning” to the company in July.
But TikTok and its owner Bytedance had failed to show an “effective mechanism for proactive moderation of unlawful online content”, the authority said, and so the app had been banned.
It is not clear what TikTok content precisely had caused problems for regulators in Pakistan.
TikTok has been told that the authority is “open for engagement”, it said in the same statement, and the decision could still be reviewed.
Reuters reported that the decision was taken after Imran Khan, Pakistan’s prime minister, took an interest in the issue. He had instructed the telecoms authority to discourage vulgar content, the news agency reported. - INDEPENDENT
According to a report ‘ TikTok star terms ban move to divert public attention from issues ’ by Peerzada Salman in Dawn social media celebrity Hareem Shah on Saturday slammed the restriction and called it a move to divert the public’s attention from real issues, such as wheat flour crisis.
“As you all know that TikTok has been banned and the reason that’s been given for it is behaya’i (vulgarity or indecent content). I think that’s not a solid reason. It’s an entertainment app. If there’s criminal content on it then the administrators [those who run it] of the app block it themselves,” the popular TikToker said.
“Instead of banning it, they [the government] should identify those who are involved in criminal or vulgar acts so that they could be punished and behaya’i is eliminated. In the US they banned the app by giving a solid reason, which was their national security. If there is a national security issue in Pakistan, then it’s right. But vulgarity is not a reason. I will give you an example: when your fingernails grow big you cut your nails, not the entire hand,” she maintained.
Ms Shah received a volley of questions from journalists and answered all of them with poise at a press conference on Saturday held at the Karachi Press Club to elicit her opinion on the government’s ban on TikTok app.
“There are different institutions such as the Censor Board in Pakistan who can do this job well. You will find people with a positive attitude to life as well as those with a negative one everywhere. If you look at it, then there is material on YouTube, Facebook and Instagram too which is not good for the country’s reputation. India and the US had issues with China, so they banned the app. If you are out to put an end to vulgarity you need to enforce the Islamic system (Islami qanoon nafiz karein) in the country.”
In reply to a question, she said TikTok brought out talents of people; how could one snatch that from them. According to her, behaya’i is something that makes a person move away from imaan. Behaya’i contains many things.
Answering a question, she said behaya’i committed by man or woman, either way, was condemnable. Women compared to men have become the focus of attention more if something bad happens. “Who is raping women? Men. This is the Islamic Republic of Pakistan and [yet] a woman can’t go out with her children. Why can’t you talk about that? What recently happened on Motorway, when a woman was raped, was done by men.” - Dawn
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