KARACHI: Pakistani TikTok stars say they are not surprised by the government's plan to ban the video-sharing app, and some of them would even support it.
Last week, the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) said it had issued a "final warning" to the Chinese video-sharing platform over "immoral, obscene and vulgar content," after banning the Singaporean live-streaming app Bigo for the same reasons. The regulator requested that TikTok put in place a "comprehensive mechanism" to control obscenity.
While the announcement created an uproar on social media with many users and starlets voicing their opposition, TikTok influencers — with millions of followers — admit that some of the content circulated on the platform can indeed be inappropriate.
"Every invention has its merits and demerits, or good or bad aspects, but in Pakistan, unfortunately, TikTok is mostly having a negative effect on our young generation," Haris Ali, who has four million TikTok followers told Arab News.
The 20-year-old KIPS College Lahore student, who gained fame for the funny videos he posts on his account @harrisali_01, told Arab News that much of other TikTok content is indeed inappropriate and many families would not want their children to watch it.
It would not surprise him, he added, if the platform gets banned, in which case he would just shift to Instagram to post his videos there.
Ali said TikTok did not pay its popular users in Pakistan since the platform was not registered in the country, but mass following coupled with his dancing, acting and modeling skills, had made about 30 brands approach him to endorse their products.
Another top Pakistani TikTok user, Toqeer Abbas, aka Phoollu, whose @phoolllu account has 4.8 million followers, said for the past four months lots of negative material filled with abusive language had been uploaded to the platform.
Phoollu, a farmer from the small town of Dhok Shahani near Mandi Bahauddin, earns Rs600 a day working for a landlord. His TikTok career started when a friend uploaded a funny video he had made, which went viral, bringing him brand endorsement deals and gigs in videos of famous artists such as rapper Arbaaz Khan.
"I wish that PTA just blocked those accounts which are sharing indecent material instead of banning the app completely, but if the government decides to shut it down, I will support it,” said the 27-year-old father of six.
He said if Tiktok were banned he would move to other channels such as YouTube where he already had many subscribers, hopeful that neither his fame nor earnings would be affected.
Artist Zhalay Sarhadi whose videos posted on the TikTok account @zhalaysarhadi get 1.5 million likes, said she is not in favor of banning the app, but believes that it is justifiable to introduce regulations to prevent young users from being exposed to disturbing content.
Herself not financially dependent on the platform, Sarhadi said banning it may cut the wings of many upcoming stars.
"Many notable talents have risen from this platform and are in the process of becoming real stars," she said, "We cannot take away from these genuinely talented individuals this medium and outlet for creativity."
