PTA unbans TikTok in Pakistan, after app decides to pull out investment

  • “TikTok is being unlocked after assurance from management that they will block all accounts repeatedly involved in spreading obscenity and immorality,” said PTA.
Updated 19 Oct, 2020

The Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) on Monday announced that it is unbanning popular video-sharing social app, TikTok after the app decided to pull out investment and resources from Pakistan.

“TikTok is being unlocked after assurance from management that they will block all accounts repeatedly involved in spreading obscenity and immorality,” said PTA. TikTok will moderate the account in accordance with local laws, it added.

The telecom regulator on October 9, blocked the application citing that company’s failure to “fully comply" with its instructions for “development of an effective mechanism for proactive moderation of unlawful online content”.

After the development ByteDance, the company who owns the app, in a statement said, “TikTok’s mission is to inspire creativity and joy, and that's just what we've done in Pakistan. We've built a community whose creativity and passion has brought joy to households across Pakistan and opened vital economic opportunities to incredibly talented creators.”

“This is why we're sad that our users and creators in Pakistan are still unable to access the app, more than one week after our services were blocked by the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA),” it added.

However, the company said that “If the government of Pakistan decides to reopen access to our services in the future, we can assess our allocation of resources to this market.”

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