Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) on Friday, 9 October, announced that it has blocked the social-media app TikTok, citing that the Chinese company has failed to filter out ‘immoral’ content.
The government in its press statement, released by the PTA, said that the Chinese company has failed to comply with “the authority instructions for the development of an effective mechanism for proactive moderation of unlawful online content.”
PTA, in its Twitter statement, said it has issued instructions for blocking of the application.
“Keeping in view the complaints and nature of the content being consistently posted on TikTok, PTA issued a final notice to the application and gave considerable time to respond and comply with the Authority instructions for the development of an effective mechanism for proactive moderation of unlawful online content. However, the application failed to fully comply with the instructions, therefore, directions were issued for blocking of TikTok application in the country. However, the application failed to fully comply with the instructions, therefore, directions were issued for blocking of TikTok application in the country,” the PTA said, in its statement.
In July, Pakistan's telecommunications regulator had issued a “final warning” to the short-form video app over explicit content posted on the platform, reported Livemint.
TikTok, owned by China-based ByteDance, has been caught in a firestorm globally due to security and privacy concerns.
India blocked the Chinese-app TikTok in August this year.
(With inputs from Livemint)
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