PESHAWAR: The Peshawar High Court (PHC) instructed the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) to remove all blasphemous, objectionable, and immoral content from the TikTok social media short-video sharing platform.
A bench consisting of Justice SM Atiq Shah and Justice Shakeel Ahmed presided over the crucial hearing of the 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 for persistent breaches of guidelines and violations of the Constitution.
The court addressed concerns about TikTok’s content, specifically 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 noted that any blasphemous posts on TikTok were promptly blocked.
However, Justice Shah questioned the effectiveness of these measures, pointing out “why such content didn’t get filtered in Pakistan like in the US and other countries, where they have better filtering systems in place.”
“Why hasn’t such a system been implemented here?” he asked. He further inquired about the possibility of creating a firewall to automatically block blasphemous videos, to which the PTA’s lawyer responded, “We do not currently have such a system.”
The court emphasised 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, 2024.
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 response to the petition seeking a ban on TikTok.
As per TikTok’s latest transparency reports, in the second half of 2023, the Pakistani government made 303 requests, resulting in the removal of 93.5% of the reported content.
The report stated that the platform removed 12,392 pieces of content for community guidelines violations and 2,126 pieces of content for local law violations.
TikTok also removed 270 accounts for community guidelines violations and 59 accounts for local law violations.
