Pakistan HC bans Chinese app TikTok 'temporarily' for ‘spreading immorality’

In a key development, a High Court in Pakistan temporarily suspended TikTok. While hearing a petition against the Chinese video-sharing app, the Sindh High Court directed the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) to suspend the Chinese app till the next hearing, which is slated to take place on July 8. The temporary suspension is put on the app on the grounds that it is 'spreading immorality' in the country. 

It is pertinent to mention here that this is the second time that the app has been banned in the country this year. In March, the Peshawar High Court (PHC) had taken a similar action on a petition filed by several citizens. However, the PHC, after a few weeks, had lifted the ban by asking the PTA to take measures so that no ''immoral content'' was uploaded. In October, the PTA for the first time banned TikTok after receiving complaints about the indecent and immoral content, but lifted the ban after 10 days.

It may be noted here that Pakistan has long-standing ties with China since 1951. Not only have the two countries time and again showed military co-operation, but also cooperation in economic-social spheres. 

TikTok and its contentious policies

TikTok, known in China as Douyin, is a Chinese video-sharing social networking service owned by the Chinese company ByteDance. The social media platform is used to make a variety of short-form videos, from genres like dance, comedy, and education, that have a duration from 15 seconds to one minute. Now, that's where the problem comes in, in the name of dance, comedy, and education, people across the world have been sharing anything and everything- which includes ever-teasing, domestic violence, or just violence in general, all to get a large number of views and likes. In this respect, the ground of spreading 'immorality' holds true. There are also accusations of censorship, external influence from China, and the misuse of data against the app. 

So far, a number of countries have either banned or threatened to ban the platform. In June 2019,  the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology of India banned TikTok saying they were "prejudicial to sovereignty and integrity of India, defense of India, security of the state and public order", and the ban was made permanent in January 2020. Besides India, countries like the USA, Japan, Bangladesh, Indonesia among others have intermittently banned the video-sharing app and have threatened to make the ban permanent. Russia, on the other hand, fined the app in April 2021 over protest posts. 

(Credit-AP/Unsplash)