PAK REGULATOR LIFTS TIKTOK BAN AFTER APP VOWS TO MODERATE VIDEO CONTENT
Pakistan’s telecom regulator has announced it will lift a ban on popular video-sharing app TikTok.
The Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) said on Monday the decision was taken after TikTok’s management assured the PTA that it will block all accounts “involved in spreading obscenity and immorality” in the country.
The decision has come more than a week after PTA blocked the Chinese-owned video-sharing platform over “immoral and indecent” content.
ByteDance-owned TikTok later said in a statement that it was pleased to see the app unblocked for users in Pakistan. “We appreciate the PTA’s commitment to ongoing productive dialogue and recognise their care for the digital experience of Pakistani users,” it said.
The move was widely welcomed in Pakistan, where a number of people have turned into stars because of the content they produced and the followers they amassed.
Pakistan is TikTok’s 12th largest market and analysts say the popularity of the app grew phenomenally in the country this year during the lengthy coronavirus-related lockdown.
The video-sharing app has been downloaded nearly 43 million times in Pakistan, including 14.7 million this year alone, according to data from research firm SensorTower.
There have been complaints over some of the content that is shared on the platform. The company has taken down nearly 6.5 million videos between January and June - the third highest for any country.
Demonstrators hold a pro-democracy protest in Bangkok. Thailand’s parliament will hold a special session next week to discuss the protesters’ demands after emergency rules and police crackdowns failed to halt daily rallies across the nation. Meanwhile, a court ordered the shutting down of a news outlet connected to exiled former premier Thaksin Shinawatra as demonstrators took to the streets for a sixth consecutive day. Voice TV, a website partly owned by Thaksin’s family, was one of four media organisations under fire for their reporting of the protest movement.