PESHAWAR
\nThe Peshawar High Court (PHC) on Wednesday directed the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) to ensure the removal of any blasphemous and objectionable material from the social media short-video sharing platform TikTok.
\nA bench comprising Justice SM Atiq Shah and Justice Shakeel Ahmed presided over the critical hearing of the petition seeking to ban TikTok in Pakistan.
\nThe petition was filed by Advocate Imran Khan requesting the court to direct the respondents \u2014 PTA, Federal Investigation Agency (FIA), and Ministry of Information \u2014 to ban TikTok in Pakistan permanently for persistent breach of guidelines and violation of the Constitution.
\nThe court addressed concerns over the platform\u2019s content, specifically focusing on blasphemous and objectionable videos.
\nJehanzaib Mehsud, the lawyer representing PTA, informed the court, \u201cWe have submitted our comments today.\u201d
\nThe petitioner\u2019s lawyer said they had in their petition appealed to the court that TikTok be banned, arguing, \u201cWhile we do not oppose the sharing of positive content, the platform is also being used to share blasphemous material.\u201d
\nJustice Ahmed supported this view, asserting, \u201cPositive content should be shared, but there must be no place for objectionable material.\u201d
\nDuring the hearing, PTA\u2019s lawyer noted that any blasphemous posts on TikTok were promptly blocked.
\nHowever, Justice Shah questioned the effectiveness of these measures, pointing out \u201cwhy such content didn\u2019t get filtered in Pakistan like in the US and other countries, where they have better filtering systems in place.\u201d
\n\u201cWhy hasn\u2019t such a system been implemented here?\u201d he asked. He further inquired about the possibility of creating a firewall to automatically block blasphemous videos, to which the PTA\u2019s lawyer responded, \u201cWe do not currently have such a system.\u201d
\nThe court emphasised the national importance of this issue, urging the PTA to take a proactive role in addressing the concerns raised.
\nThe PTA was directed to remove all objectionable content from TikTok and to submit a detailed report within seven days.
\nThe next hearing of the case is scheduled for July 24.
\nThe popular video-sharing platform TikTok was initially banned in Pakistan in October 2020. Since then, it has faced multiple bans, with authorities citing concerns over the promotion of immoral content.
\nIn its last hearing on June 21, the PHC had sought the PTA response to a petition seeking a ban on TikTok.
\nAccording to TikTok\u2019s latest transparency reports, in the second half of 2023, TikTok received 303 requests from the Pakistani government, resulting in the removal of 93.5% of reported content.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
PESHAWAR The Peshawar High Court (PHC) on Wednesday directed the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) to ensure the removal of any blasphemous and objectionable material from the social media short-video sharing platform TikTok. A bench comprising Justice SM Atiq Shah and Justice Shakeel Ahmed presided over the critical hearing of the petition seeking to ban TikTok […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":177177,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-414707","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-top-news"},"yoast_head":"\n