Social media services restored after temporary suspension amid protests
Services of social media platforms — Twitter, Facebook, Youtube, Whatsapp and Telegram — were partially restored in Pakistan on Friday after being suspended for four hours.
Earlier, the interior ministry had asked the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) to block social media platforms from 11am till 3pm. “In order to maintain public order and safety, access to certain social media applications has been restricted temporarily,” the PTA later said in its explanation. The move came amid fears that activists of the radical Tehreek- e-labbaik Pakistan (TLP) party might use the technology to stoke violent protests against printing of blasphemous cartoons in France.
Political parties frequently use social media to rally supporters, and the announcement came just before Friday prayers, which usually draw huge crowds to mosques where firebrand clerics have in the past catalysed protests.
“These past few days have been chaotic,” said Mariam Jamal, who works at a digital marketing company in Lahore. “First we couldn’t get to work on time because of the traffic jams and road blocks, and now we can’t really do much because social media is blocked.”
In Peshawar, Eqtedar Ahmad said his work as a doctor at a private hospital had been disrupted. “We use Whatsapp for routine business — including sending lab reports to patients — and this current suspension has affected us severely,” he said.
Wamiq Haris, a 30-year-old who depends on social media to run his food delivery service in Karachi, said orders had plummeted. “Every day we face a new challenge for our business,” he said.
Protests had been cleared from most cities, but in Lahore hundreds of TLP supporters continued a sitin. Farhan Ahmed, a driver in Lahore, said the government had blocked Whatsapp to prevent people from sharing information about how much the TLP “have suffered” in protests. —