Pakistan Bans TikTok Citing Compliance Issues

Islamabad: Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) in a press release announced that the Telecommunication Authority of the nation has decided to ban the popular Chinese video-sharing app Tik Tok as the app failed to "fully comply with the authorities instructions" in monitoring "immoral and indecent" content being shared through the video-sharing platform.

The authority states that the decision was made keeping in view a number of complaints that have been received from "different segments of the society".

PTA made it clear that the authority had issued a "final notice" in July and had given the application "considerable time" to "develop an effective mechanism for a proactive moderation of its unlawful online content", however, the company failed.

Tik Tok, owned by China's ByteDance was earlier banned in the countries neighbouring nation India due to security concerns. India was one of the biggest user-bases of Tik Tok before it was banned along with 57 other Chinees applications such as PUBG Mobile, CamScanner, WeChat, Share IT, UC browser and many more in June. The company faced a downfall in their turnover then. Ban in Pakistan is also believed to have a huge impact on their economy. Tik Tok has been reported to be the third most downloaded application in the country after WhatsApp and Facebook.

Meanwhile, the decision of the authority have attracted both appreciations and objections in the country, PTA has also informed that the authority is open for engagement and is willing to review it's a decision if the company is ready to moderate the unlawful activities occurring in it.

(The Story is Reported by Fathima Jumana for Madhyamam English)