Pakistan Again Lifts Ban on TikTok

Pakistan’s media regulating authority lifted a ban on TikTok, Friday, after four months.

This decision was made following assurances from the popular Chinese video-sharing service that it would control the spread of indecent content.

In a statement on Twitter, the regulatory agency said TikTok had assured Pakistan it would also block users who upload “unlawful content.”

The app, owned by China’s ByteDance, has been downloaded almost 39 million times in Pakistan. Therefore, the country has been urging TikTok to develop an effective mechanism to control unlawful content.

It is the fourth time in the past 15 months that Pakistan Telecommunication Authority imposed and lifted such a ban.

Pakistan first blocked TikTok in October 2020 over what it called widespread complaints about allegedly “immoral, obscene, and vulgar” content on the app.

Over the years, the country has also forwarded hundreds of complaints to Facebook and Twitter about content, alleging it is offensive and potentially insulting to Islam, which goes against Pakistani law.