Pakistan is banning TikTok, but not over national security
What's the story
The problems for TikTok are far from over.
As the hit video service struggles to hold its ground in the US, Pakistan has launched a salvo banning the service completely.
But, weirdly enough, the decision has not been taken in light of national security concerns, as is the case in the US.
Here is more about it.
Reason
Immoral and indecent content is the issue
The ban, announced recently by the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority, is being enforced in response to complaints "from different segments of the society against immoral/indecent content [posted] on the video-sharing platform."
PTA stated that it has issued instructions for the blocking of the application, which implies it should become inaccessible to people in the country in the coming days.
Warnings
Warnings were given to develop a moderation solution
In its notice announcing the ban, PTA said that it had issued a final warning to TikTok in July in view of the public complaints and the nature of the content being consistently posted on the service.
It wanted the popular ByteDance-owned service to develop "an effective mechanism for proactive moderation of unlawful online content."
Failure
However, TikTok failed to comply
Despite having a considerable amount of time to respond to the issues and comply with the instructions, TikTok failed to act, resulting in the ban, PTA said.
Still, the authority has emphasized that it is open for engagement and will review its decision in case TikTok manages to implement a satisfactory mechanism to moderate the unlawful content in question.
Problems
This marks another big blow for TikTok
The action from the Pakistani government comes as another big blow for TikTok, which has already been banned in India, its largest overseas market, and is facing problems in the US and Australia.
However, unlike Pakistan, all these nations have raised alarms over national security concerns stemming from TikTok rather than the nature of the content posted on the video-sharing service.