ISLAMABAD: A Pakistani man petitioned the Lahore High Court (LHC) on Wednesday to ban the video-sharing platform TikTok in the country, accusing the app of having a “bad, negative and dangerous” impact on the youth.
Pakistani authorities have banned the video-sharing service several times in the past, with the first ban imposed in October 2020 over what was described as widespread complaints about allegedly “immoral, obscene, and vulgar” content on the app.
The service was prohibited from operating in the country thrice more over a period of 15 months since then. In November 2021, a Pakistani court finally reversed the ban after TikTok assured the Pakistani government it would control the spread of objectionable content.
“It is most reverentially prayed that the writ petition in hand may kindly be accepted and the respondents may very graciously be directed/ordered to ban Tik Tok application,” the petition, filed by an individual named Rana Usman Anwar, stated.
“Owing to its bad, dangerous, and negative impacts on the young generations in our society, in the larger and longer interest of justice.”
The petitioner named the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA), and the federal and provincial governments as respondents in the plea. He mentioned that Pakistani youngsters over the past several months were uploading reels and short movies on TikTok which were against the principles of a Muslim society.
“Youngsters [...] are being poisoned by such applications while promoting obnoxious, nude, sexual and disgusting materials, which are not only against the norms of Islamic injunctions but also against and contrary to the settled norms of morality,” the petitioner maintained.
Owned by China-based ByteDance, TikTok is one of the most popular video-sharing apps in Pakistan, reporting over 39 million downloads in 2022, according to mobile and digital analytics firm Sensor Tower.
In July this year, the app said in its quarterly report it removed over 91 million videos globally for community guidelines violations, including 11.7 million videos from Pakistan.
