KARACHI – The Sindh High Court (SHC) on Friday withdrew its decision of banning the widely popular video-sharing app, TikTok.
A bench of the high court issued the ruling while hearing a petition moved by PTA seeking removal of the ban imposed on a complaint lodged by a citizen over the circulation of immoral content on TikTok.
The authority has also been directed to resolve the grievances of the complainant, who had filed a petition with SHC after PTA did not address his concerns, by July 5.
A representative of PTA assured the court that the complaint will be addressing within the given time period.
Federal Information Minister Fawad Chaudhry, who has been opposing the ban on the app, has welcomed the decision.
خوشی ہے کہ سندہ ہائیکورٹ نے TikTok پر پابندی کا فیصلہ واپس لے لیا ہے، دنیا میں اس وقت ٹیکنالوجی کی جنگ چل رہی ہے کمپنیاں ایکدوسرے کے خلاف پراپیگنڈا کر رہی ہیں ہمارے ریگولیٹری ادارے اور جج صاحبان کو اس لڑائ سے علیحدہ رہنا چاہئے اور جو پاکستان میں سرمایہ کاری کرے اسے خوش آمدیدکہیں
— Ch Fawad Hussain (@fawadchaudhry) July 2, 2021
There is an ongoing technology war in the world, he said, adding that the companies are propagating against each other.
“Our regulators and judges should stay away from this war,” he said.
Earlier this week, SHC ordered the suspension of TikTok across the country over immoral and un-Islamic content till July 8.
The court had also issued a notice to the Attorney General of Pakistan and others, and sought a reply from them by July 8.
The applicant informed the court that the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) was approached to block the content but no action was taken.
This was the second time a high court imposed a ban on the China-based ByteDance’s app this year.
On March 12, the Peshawar High Court had directed the state-run telecommunication authority to “immediately block access” to the short-form video-sharing service.
The court directed PTA to block the app “until and unless some mechanism is devised to filter the material which is immoral and indecent and goes against our norms and ethics.”
On April 1 this year, the PHC ordered the lifting of the ban after three weeks on popular video streaming app TikTok.
Justice Qaiser Khan, in a brief verdict, announced that the application can be unblocked but “indecent” content should not be posted on it.
Read more: https://pakobserver.net/pakistani-court-bans-tiktok-over-immoral-content/
