ISLAMABAD: The Islamabad High Court (IHC) has directed the Federal Cabinet to take up the matter of ban on video-sharing social media app TikTok.
IHC Chief Justice Athar Minallah presided over the meeting. Maryam Farid appeared on behalf of the petitioner and Munawar Iqbal Dogar from Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) and Deputy Attorney General Tayyab Shah appeared before on behalf of the federation.
The IHC inquired from PTA’s lawyer whether the app was being currently used across the country. To which, the PTA counsel said, “About 99% of the people are using the app in the country through a proxy.”
The court then questioned why was the authority so adamant about banning the app if they cannot beat technology and also asked whether PTA had been asked to take policy direction from the government over the matter.
“The PTA should take instructions from the federal cabinet. Why didn’t the telecommunication authority seek policy instructions from the federal cabinet on court orders?” Justice Minallah added.
The social media platform, where users can post and share short videos, was banned by the PTA on July 21, over its failure to remove ‘inappropriate content’.
On August 7, Justice Minallah said, in his interim order, that after reading the court verdicts, it had become clear that they did not call for a ban on the video-sharing application TikTok.
Justice Minallah issued a six-page interim order on the petition against the ban on TikTok which also mentioned a report submitted by PTA in the Sindh High Court (SHC) wherein the authority revealed that the ban on the social media platform was due to objectionable content by one percent of its users.
