The authorities’ ban on TikTok has come as a devastating blow to the video-sharing platform’s dedicated community in the country. Dubbed the “public’s platform”, the app, utilized and adored by people from all walks of life, was prohibited after an initial order by Peshawar High Court (PHC).
Social media has become a source of livelihood for many people. This includes young content creators who have built recognition, travel vloggers, women running cooking shows, makeup tutorial to earn from home, and students who are learning online.
TikTok in Pakistan
Currently, available in more than 155 countries in 80 languages, TikTok is a platform for short-form videos, created with a library of editing tools, filters and effects. Users can adapt and remix posts by other users, usually to impish effect, mucking around with context and meaning.
Pakistan is TikTok’s 12th largest market in terms of app installs, with 43 million installs total, according to the analytics firm Sensor Tower. In spite of its 13th place in market share, Pakistan listed 3rd in terms of total video eliminations for violating TikTok’s content standards during the first half of 2020, with more than 5.5 million videos pulled.
These videos were removed by TikTok, rather than at the government’s request, though videos may be removed for violating local laws. TikTok has become hugely trendy over a short period of time, by encouraging young users to post brief videos.
Though, the social media app has been stalled in controversy with the system in a number of countries raising privacy and death incidents concerns and security fears.
Peshawar High Court order
In compliance with the Peshawar High Court (PHC) orders, the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) has issued directives to all service providers to immediately block access to the TikTok App in the country. The Peshawar High Court (PHC) ordered authorities concerned to immediately ban the video-sharing platform in the country.
During a hearing of a plea filed by more than 40 citizens in the Peshawar High Court seeking a ban on tick-tock talk, Chief Justice Qaiser Rashid Khan called for a ban to be imposed on the app.
During the hearing, the PHC CJ observed that videos uploaded on TikTok are not acceptable for the Pakistani society. He added that the people that were mostly affected by TikTok were the youth.
He also asked the DG Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA), who was present in the court, if shutting down TikTok would harm the people running the app, to which the DG responded in the affirmative.
The judge also expressed his displeasure over the “reports” he was receiving of TikTok. TikTok videos are peddling vulgarity in society he said and ordered that this app be blocked immediately.
Earlier ban on the app
On 09 October 2020, TikTok had been banned in Pakistan over ‘obscene and indecent content’. The Pakistan Telecommunication Authority banned TikTok in view of complaints. As per the authority, the app was given significant time to respond and comply with instructions to effectively moderate unlawful online content.
However, the application failed to fully comply with the instructions; therefore, instructions were issued for blocking of TikTok application in the country, the statement said. Later, the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) had lifted the ban on TikTok after 10 days.
Freedom of expression and TikTok
Social media content became a harsh subject to policing with the development of strategies to legalize content as well as with the registration of cases against citizens for their posts on the platforms.
We saw increase policing of content on social media platforms as several rules were notified hence further reducing the space for criticism, debate and discussion online.
Freedom of expression is essential to a democratic society. It seeks out and circulates information, ideas and opinion and holds those in authority accountable. So it is imperative to formulate a strategy that, at the same time, restrains the controversial content and also permits a basic level of Freedom of expression.
It is important to understand that the things that need to be controlled the dangers of social media without restricting the right to information and freedom of speech.
