Fawad Chaudhry slams authorities over social media apps ban

Federal Minister for Science and Technology has slammed the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) and the country’s legal authorities for banning social media apps.

The minister was of the view that the ‘courts and PTA should stay away from 'moral policing'. “Courts and PTA must stay away from moral policing and Ban Approach, such bans on internet-based apps will destroy Pakistan tech industry and development of technology will be permanently hampered,” said Chaudhry in a tweet post on Wednesday.

“We are still not out of woods because of judges ill-advised interference in economic matters,” he added.

The statement comes after the PTA banned live streaming app Bigo, and has also issued a ‘final warning’ to the TikTok app on account of streaming vulgar content through their platforms.

In a statement, the regulator said: “Number of complaints had been received from different segments of the society against immoral, obscene & vulgar content on social media applications particularly Tik Tok and Bigo, & their extremely negative effects on the society in general & youth in particular.”

The regulator informed that it had issued necessary notices to the aforementioned social media companies under the law to moderate the socialization and content within legal and moral limits, in accordance with the laws of the country. “However, the response of these companies has not been satisfactory.”

PTA added that in exercise of its powers under PECA, it has decided to immediately block Bigo and issue a final warning to Tik Tok to put in place a comprehensive mechanism to control obscenity, vulgarity, and immorality through its social media application.