The Sindh High Court (SHC) has lifted its ban on TikTok and on Friday ordered the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) to restore the social media app while removing LGBT content.
The SHC had ordered TikTok’s suspension on June 28. The PTA implemented the first court order on June 30 but on Friday it requested the court to withdraw its earlier order.
The PTA confirmed it would remove access to certain content by July 5.
The court agree to adjourn the hearing until then.
More than six million videos were removed from TikTok in Pakistan over three months, the app said, as it battles an on-off ban in the country. Wildly popular among Pakistani youth, the Chinese-owned app has twice been shut down by the authorities over “indecent” material, 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 US, where 8,540,088 videos were removed,” TikTok Pakistan’s latest transparency report said on Wednesday, referring to the January-March period.
Around 15 percent of “indecent” content featured “adult nudity and sexual activities”. A spokesman said the Pakistan-made videos were banned at the behest of both the government and TikTok users.
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.
“Social media platforms are more willing to remove and block content in Pakistan to evade complete bans.”
It comes as the app faces a fresh court battle in Karachi, where a judge has asked telecommunication authorities to suspend it for spreading “immoral content”. The platform is still working in the country, however. Freedom of speech advocates have long criticised creeping government censorship and control of the Internet and media. Dating apps have been blocked and last year Pakistani regulators had asked YouTube to immediately block access to all videos that they considered “objectionable”. The demand was criticised by rights campaigners.
Minister for Information and Broadcasting Chaudhry Fawad Hussain on Friday expressed his relief over the lifting of the TikTok ban. In a tweet, he said that the technology war was right now being fought all over the world as companies were propagating against each other. The regulatory bodies and judiciary should stay away from such fights and investors in Pakistan should be welcomed.
