Islamabad, 26 June 2024, (GNP): The Peshawar High Court (PHC) ordered the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) to remove all blasphemous, objectionable, and immoral content from the social media short-video sharing platform TikTok.
A bench consisting of Justice SM Atiq Shah and Justice Shakeel Ahmed oversaw the crucial hearing of a petition calling for a complete ban on TikTok in Pakistan.
Advocate Imran Khan filed the petition, requesting the court to instruct the respondents — PTA, Federal Investigation Agency (FIA), and Ministry of Information — to permanently ban TikTok in Pakistan due to repeated guideline breaches and constitutional violations.
The court raised concerns about the platform’s content, particularly focusing on blasphemous and objectionable videos.
Jehanzaib Mehsud, the lawyer representing the PTA, informed the court, “We have submitted our comments today.”
The petitioner’s lawyer said they had in their petition appealed to the court that TikTok be banned, arguing, “While we do not oppose the sharing of positive content, the platform is also being used to share blasphemous material.”
Justice Ahmed supported this view, asserting, “Positive content should be shared, but there must be no place for objectionable material.”
During the hearing, PTA’s lawyer mentioned that any blasphemous posts on TikTok were promptly blocked.
However, Justice Shah questioned the effectiveness of these measures, asking why such content wasn’t filtered in Pakistan as it is in the US and other countries with better filtering systems.
“Why hasn’t such a system been implemented here?” he inquired, also asking about the possibility of creating a firewall to automatically block blasphemous videos. The PTA’s lawyer responded, “We do not currently have such a system.”
The court stressed the national importance of this issue, urging the PTA to take a proactive role in addressing the concerns raised.
The PTA was directed to remove all objectionable content from TikTok and to submit a detailed report within seven days.
The next hearing of the case is scheduled for July 24.
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The popular video-sharing platform TikTok was initially banned in Pakistan in October 2020. Since then, it has faced multiple bans, with authorities citing concerns over the promotion of immoral content.
In its last hearing on June 21, the PHC had sought the PTA’s response to the petition seeking a ban on TikTok.
According to TikTok’s latest transparency reports, in the second half of 2023, TikTok received 303 requests from the Pakistani government, resulting in the removal of 93.5% of reported content.
The platform removed 12,392 pieces of content due to community guidelines violations and 2,126 pieces of content due to local law violations, the report said.
TikTok also removed 270 accounts due to community guidelines violations and 59 accounts due to local law violations.
Additionally, TikTok’s latest Community Guidelines Enforcement Report shows that the platform proactively removes content that violates its guidelines, with a 99.5% proactive removal rate globally in Q4 2023.
