Once more, the Peshawar High Court has issued a directive instructing TikTok to eliminate explicit content from its platform.
Once again, the Peshawar High Court (PHC) has issued a request to the TikTok organization, urging them to remove any inappropriate, indecent, and offensive content from their platform.
The recent development came during the hearing of a case seeking a complete ban on the popular short-video sharing platform until all objectionable content is removed.
A representative from the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) appeared before a two-member bench consisting of Chief Justice (CJ) PHC, Justice Qaiser Rasheed, and Justice Abdul Shakoor.
The PTA representative informed the court that the authority intends to request TikTok to suspend the accounts of Pakistani users involved in sharing offensive content for a significant period. After this period, the accounts will be automatically blocked.
The lawyer also mentioned that the Federal Government has granted additional powers to the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) through the Prevention of Electronic Crimes Act (PECA) 2016 Amendment Ordinance to address such matters.
The court, while deferring the hearing until 31st May, instructed the PTA’s lawyer to engage in discussions with TikTok to devise a mechanism for filtering out offensive content in Pakistan.
Banning Timeline
PTA has banned access to TikTok in Pakistan on four separate occasions thus far.
The first ban on TikTok in Pakistan occurred in October 2020. Access was restored 10 days later after TikTok assured PTA of addressing their concerns.
In March 2021, the PHC directed PTA to ban TikTok in the country. However, the ban was lifted a month later in April.
In June of the same year, the Sindh High Court (SHC) ordered PTA to restrict access to TikTok nationwide. However, the SHC reversed its decision after 3 days, and TikTok was restored.
A month later, PTA blocked access to TikTok after the platform ignored repeated requests from the telecom regulator to remove objectionable content and implement an effective content moderation system in Pakistan.
Finally, TikTok was reinstated in the country in November 2021.
