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ISLAMABAD: The Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) has issued directives to all service providers to immediately block access to the TikTok app in the country, in compliance with the Peshawar High Court (PHC) orders.
“In respectful compliance to the orders of the Peshawar High Court, PTA has issued directions to the service providers to immediately block access to the TikTok App,” the PTA said.
The Peshawar High Court (PHC), earlier in the day, ordered Pakistani authorities to immediately ban the video-sharing platform in the country. A PHC bench, headed by 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.
In October of last year, the PTA had blocked the Chinese-owned video-sharing app after the company failed to fully comply with its instructions for “development of an effective mechanism for proactive moderation of unlawful online content”.
However, the same month, the PTA overturned its decision after it was told by TikTok that the company would “block all accounts repeatedly involved in spreading obscenity and immorality”.
