Sindh High Court withdraws ban on Tiktok
July 2, 2021Earlier on June 28, the Sindh High Court had banned Tiktok,
against which the PTA had filed a miscellaneous petition.
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| The Sindh High Court had banned Tiktok 28 June |
The Sindh High Court has lifted
the ban on social media video app Tiktok and directed the Pakistan
Telecommunications Authority (PTA) to take a decision.
The Sindh High Court heard PTA’s
petition against the ban on Tiktok and the court issued directions to the PTA.
The PTA took a stand before the
court that the PTA has to decide on the petition of the complainant. After the
decision, the petitioner can approach the Sindh High Court.
PTA’s counsel told the court that
the petitioner’s application was being processed and a decision would be taken
by July 5. He also asked the court to withdraw the restraining order.
The Sindh High Court directed the
PTA to expedite the disposal of Tiktok applications and withdrew the ban on Tiktok.
The court directed that the
petitions be disposed of expeditiously on the complaints of the petitioner
regarding the spread of obscenity including homosexuality and adjourned the
hearing till July 5.
Tiktok Banned in Pakistan
It may be recalled that on June
28, the Sindh High Court, at the request of a citizen, had ordered the PTA to
close the short video sharing application Tiktok till July 8.
In the petition, the citizen had
sought a ban on Tiktok due to the presence of immoral and obscene material and
the court, while hearing the citizen’s request, immediately directed the PTA to
suspend Tiktok till the next hearing on July 8.
Tiktok Banned in Peshawar
In March, before the Sindh High
Court, the Peshawar High Court had also ordered the closure of Tiktok due to
the presence of immoral material.
Tiktok was shut down immediately
following court orders and the short video sharing application was closed for a
few days.
The Peshawar High Court had also
ordered the closure of Tiktok during the hearing of petitions filed by several
citizens.
The PTA also shut down Tiktok
nationwide in October 2020 due to the presence of unethical content, after the
PTA had issued notices to the application management to remove pornographic
content.
The Tiktok administration later
claimed to have removed millions of videos based on inappropriate content,
after which the PTA restored the Tiktok service.
In March 2021, the Tiktok service
was suspended for 10 days on the orders of the Peshawar High Court, after which
the Tiktok administration restored the service in April on claims and
assurances that the pornographic videos had been removed.