Daily Times

The Pakistan Telecom Authority (PTA) has blocked over 1 million online accounts having unlawful and illicit content, Daily Times has learnt reliably.

According to available documents, the authority has received public complaints through various sources and took action accordingly. “Until September 14, the PTA had processed 12, 06,876 URLs for blocking through concerned wings of the authority,” reads a document.

Out of a total targeted 12, 06,876 online platforms, the authorities have blocked 1,135,814 such online sites whereas action against 10,592 such users turned down as they found either fulfilling the required criteria or they never uploaded any legally prohibited content on their respective accounts. Moreover, 60,470 of such online platforms, as per document, are still accessible as the action against them is yet under process. The sources said that crackdown against most of said accounts was initiated as per receiving public complaints against them.

The blocking online mediums including others/Mics, Facebook, Twitter, Tiktok, YouTube, Instagram, Snack Video, Likee and Dailymotion respectively.

As per document, the PTA processed against 884,835 being functioned on others/Mics out of them it has blocked 878,300 accounts and 6273 such mediums are under yet under investigation due to which these are accessible while the action against only 262 accounts of this platform denied.

The 134,549 Facebook accounts asked to be blocked over prescribed laws’ violation. Out of them 12,698 accounts blocked after comprehensively analyzing by the authorities concerned in the PTA while the 4,603 complaints rejected and 17,548 Facebook of are yet running as the action is yet pending against them.

After investigation of 63,233 twitter accounts that allegedly committed violation of prescribed laws, the 31,870 of such accounts were blocked after action or complaints against 3,293 such users was rejected. The 28,070 Twitter accounts are yet properly on as the action are yet due against them.

Likewise, the document showed that 65,122 TikTok accounts were found with unlawful or illicit content. After some probe, the PTA declared 63,632 such accounts as illegal and also blocked all them. It has turned down action against 83 accounts and 1,407 accounts are yet in function until completion of further probe that is under the process.

The PTA took action against 42,832 accounts of online video platform YouTube out of which it has blocked 36,138 inappropriate accounts and 4,533 accounts are asked to be accessible until further examining the matter, whereas 2,161 accounts were refused from taking action as not unlawful content were found after primary probe.

The document further revealed that there have been processed probes against 10919 Instagram accounts that are said to be run in violation of prescribed laws. Out of them 112698 accounts blocked after comprehensive analysis while 2671 accounts of this online medium are declared as “accessible” provisionally and no action was taken against 170 accounts due to proving no inappropriate stuff on them.

Similarly, 3,775 accounts on SnackVideo were found with unlawful or illicit content. After some probe the PTA’ declared 3,602 such accounts as illegal and also blocked all of them. The PTA has turned down action against only six accounts and 71 accounts are yet in function until completion further that is under the process by the authority.

Moreover, as per PTA document, 1,036 and 576 actions were taken against accounts on Likee and Dailymotion, while out of them 965 and 531 sites held to be blocked respectively.

Meanwhile, the PTA said in a separate statement that in order to ensure earliest restoration of telecom services in flood affected districts across the country, the authority in collaboration with telecom operators’ teams has been vigorously and continuously pursuing earliest restoration of affected services since mid-August 2022. At its peak, a maximum of 3,386 sites were down on 28th Aug 2022, out of which as many as 3251 sites have been restored.