More than six million videos were removed from TikTok in Pakistan in three months as it battles an on-off ban in the deeply conservative country.
Wildly popular among Pakistani youth, the Chinese-owned app has been shut down by authorities twice over “indecent” content, most recently in March after which the company pledged to moderate uploads.
“In the Pakistani market, TikTok removed 6,495,992 videos making it the second market to get the most videos removed after the USA, where 8,540,088 videos were removed,” TikTok Pakistan’s latest transparency report said on Wednesday, covering January to March.
Around 15 percent of the removed videos were “adult nudity and sexual activities”. A spokesman said the Pakistan-made videos were banned as a result of both user and government requests.
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In the Muslim nation, posting videos in Western clothes that reveal too much skin is taboo, and is often met with abuse. Earlier this month, small anti-TikTok rallies were held against what protesters called the spreading of homosexual content.
“One can speculate that this is a result of government pressure or a reflection of the large volume of content produced in Pakistan given the popularity of the platform, or both,” said digital rights activist Nighat Dad.
Dating apps have been blocked and last year Pakistani regulators had asked YouTube to immediately block all videos they considered “objectionable” from being accessed in the country, a demand criticised by rights campaigners.
