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Services of social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter, remained disrupted for the third consecutive day in Pakistan on Monday.
Downdetector indicated that the outage commenced shortly after 10:30 am and persisted until noon, with services being reinstated around 12:24 pm but experiencing another disruption after 1 pm. The platform, which aggregates outage reports from various sources, including users, highlighted Karachi, Rawalpindi, Lahore, and Gujranwala as the areas most affected.
This disruption marks the third consecutive day of service interruptions for X, coinciding with allegations of electoral irregularities in the February 8 polls. On Saturday, internet monitoring organization Netblocks reported a nationwide disruption to X amidst escalating unrest and protests over accusations of election fraud, following a senior election official’s resignation and public admission of vote manipulation.
The outage occurred following an explosive press conference by former Rawalpindi commissioner Liaqat Ali Chattha, who accused the Election Commission of Pakistan and Chief Justice Qazi Faez Isa of involvement in rigging—an allegation refuted by both entities. Chattha claimed that losing candidates were manipulated into winning, and the process to validate these results was ongoing in an organized manner at certain offices.
On Sunday, Netblocks reported that X had been restricted in Pakistan for 24 hours, denoting the latest and longest in a series of nationwide internet censorship measures enacted by authorities amid reports of election fraud.
Meanwhile, digital rights activists and cybersecurity experts have called a shutdown of social media platform X in Pakistan a “blatant violation” of civil liberties, saying it would trigger further disinformation in the South Asian nation.
“This is a blatant violation of civil liberties. It’s not good for democracy,” said Nighat Dad, a leading Pakistani digital rights activist and lawyer, adding the shutdown of the Internet or any specific social media platform would not help tackle the issues of disinformation or security.