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It would not be wrong to say that TikTok has had a challenging time of late. First, it was one of 59 Chinese-owned apps that the Indian government banned back in June. This popular application is owned by the Chinese company Bytedance, and was taken off app stores after the decision by the Ministry of Electronics and Information and Technology (MEITY).
Following this is the protracted legal battle that TikTok has gotten into in the US. In a 20th September order, the US government had initially banned all transactions on both TikTok and WeChat, which led people to believe that transactions on Fortnite were also included.
Since then, Bytedance has rushed to solve the problem and is in talks with Oracle Corp to start a new company called ‘TikTok Global’. This is because the countries in question have cited various ‘National Security’ concerns. The US is more concerned with the data handling of American citizens who use the app.
TikTok now banned in Pakistan due to ‘immoral’ content
As far as Pakistan is concerned, issues other than those pertaining to ‘National Security’ have been discussed. Unlike the US and India, Pakistan has cited concerns related to the ‘immoral and indecent’ content prevalent on TikTok.
In July 2020, the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority had issued a notice to TikTok and asked the developers to ‘effectively moderate the unlawful online content’. And now, according to a new press release, TikTok has been banned in Pakistan.
The statement says that given the “complaints” and “nature of content being consistently posted on TikTok”, the government had issued a final notice to the app. It was also given ‘considerable time’ to respond and comply with the instructions.
However, TikTok failed to respond sufficiently and comply as required, resulting in the suspension. Back in September, the Pakistan Information Minister had said that Prime Minister Imran Khan was very concerned about such apps and wanted to put an end to the ‘obscenity’ prevalent on video sharing platforms like TikTok.
