PESHAWAR: The Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) has claimed that it has blocked around 1.3 million uniform resource locators (URLs) until July 19, 2024, for carrying “anti-Islam, indecent and immoral” content.

In a report, the telecom regulator claimed that its web monitoring system had processed around 1.38 million URLs before blocking 93.84 per cent of them (1.303 million).

The report was shared with the Peshawar High Court as a petition called for a complete ban on TikTok in the country, claiming that the PTA has failed to stop the uploading of “blasphemous and indecent” material on the popular video-sharing mobile app.

Counsel for the PTA Jehanzeb Mehsud told a bench consisting of Justice Ijaz Anwar and Justice Syed Arshad Ali that he had submitted a comprehensive report on behalf of PTA in accordance with its earlier order.

PTA informs PHC about steps against ‘blasphemous, immoral’ material on social media

In the petition, lawyer Imran Khan requested the court to direct the respondents, including PTA, Federal Investigation Agency and the information ministry, to permanently ban TikTok in Pakistan over the “continued, recurring and consistent breach of community guidelines” and violation of the Constitution, Prevention of the Electronic Crimes Act (Peca), Rule 3 of the Removal and Blocking of Unlawful Contents Rules, 2021, and Pakistan Penal Code.

The bench put off hearing into the petition as the petitioner’s counsel was not available.

The 21-page report, the PTA said it had processed 1.03 million URLs and blocked 1.02 million in the ‘decency and immorality’ category, processed 115,401 URLs and blocked 96,622 in the ‘glory of Islam’ category, processed 125,134 URLs and blocked 91,889 in category of ‘against security and defence of Pakistan’.

In other categories, 7,152 URLs were blocked for contempt of court, 10,929 for defamation and impersonation, 10,250 for ‘proxy’, 53,915 for sectarian and hate speech, and 10,791 for other reasons.

The PTA said that it maintained a database of around 1.38 million URLs, with the updated blocking status for all reported URLs.

It also gave a breakdown of social media apps and sites whose URLs were blocked.

According to it, 147,569 of out of 171,744 Facebook URLs, 125,600 out of 128,626 processedTikTok URLs, 53,872 of 92,945 Twitter (now X) URLs, 53,162 of 61,719 proceed YouTube URLs, 22,357 of 26,000 Instagram URLs have been blocked.

Also, it has processed 894,257 URLs on other apps and websites before blocking 888,177 of them.

The PTA also said that from the year 2020 to date, the TikTok platform had blocked 113,133 contents related to the ‘immoral indecent and against glory of Islam’ categories.

“In the current year, TikTok has blocked 24,800 out of 25,267 suspected contents, which included 23,407 immoral and indecent material and 1,393 posts against the glory of Islam,” it said.

The regulator also claimed that it had taken several steps in accordance with the high court’s orders for creating public awareness about “blasphemous and immoral contents” on social media, especially TikTok.

It said that in addition to informing TikTok management about the orders of the high court, it also sent a formal letter to it on July 3, 2024, apprising it about the presence of “objectionable content of blasphemous and immoral and indecent nature” on the platform and demanded concrete measures for its early detection and removal by “enhancing the capability of the moderation teams and deploying AI measures.”

The petitioner said that the statistics showed that Pakistan had almost 54.4 million TikTok users, who made it the seventh among the top seven app user countries.

He claimed that the platform was used to disseminate “anti-Islamic, vulgar, indecent, sectarian, and disrespectful content” and thereby, contravening the parameters delineated by the Constitution, Peca,

PPC and the Removal and Blocking of Unlawful Contents Rules, 2021.

Published in Dawn, November 3rd, 2024