ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) on Tuesday banned the Singaporean live-streaming app Bigo over immoral, obscene and vulgar content and issued a final warning to Chinese video sharing platform TikTok for similar reasons.
The PTA in a statement said, “In exercise of its powers under PECA, PTA has decided to immediately block Bigo and issue final warning to TikTok to put in place a comprehensive mechanism to control obscenity, vulgarity and immorality through its social media application.”
The PTA said that a number of complaints have been received from different segments of the society against immoral, obscene and vulgar content on social media applications particularly TikTok and Bigo, and their extremely negative effects on the society in general and youth in particular.
The statement further said that PTA had issued necessary notices to the aforementioned social media companies under law to moderate socialisation 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.
Earlier this month, PTA banned the hugely popular online game, PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds (PUBG), saying it was addictive, a waste of players’ time and was having an adverse effect on the mental and physical health of the country’s youth.
PUBG, made by South Korean firm Bluehole Inc, is a survival-themed battle game that drops dozens of online players on an island to try and eliminate each other. It was launched in 2017 and has a huge global following.
Minister for Science and Technology Fawad Chaudhry said last week that he is against such bans and they are “killing the tech industry” in Pakistan.
On July 14, a petition was filed in the Lahore High Court (LHC), seeking a ban on TikTok “for the sake of securing the wellbeing of the people of Pakistan.” The court is yet to accept the plea and begin hearing the case.
