Banned for inappropriate content Pakistan lifts ban on "Tik Tok" for the fourth time

The Pakistani media regulator announced on Friday the lifting of the ban on the Chinese application "Tik Tok", after the application pledged to control the spread of inappropriate content, and this is the fourth time that Pakistan imposes and lifts the ban on the popular video-sharing platform.

Pakistan's media regulator on Friday again lifted the ban on the Tik Tok app, this time four months after it was banned following assurances from the popular Chinese video-sharing service that it would control the spread of inappropriate content.

This is the fourth time in the past 15 months that the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority has imposed and lifted this ban.

The regulator said in a statement on Twitter that the "Tik Tok" service confirmed to Pakistan that it would also ban users who upload "illegal content".

Pakistan banned TikTok for the first time in October 2020 in compliance with a court order issued in response to public complaints over what was described as vulgarity on the app.

Extensive complaints related to "immoral, obscene and vulgar" content on the service.

The ban was later lifted after a diplomatic intervention from the Chinese government and confirmation from the platform to clear its content.

Pakistan also banned the live-streaming app Bigo Live last year for the same reasons and issued a warning to YouTube, saying it should ban "vulgar content and hate speech" from users in the country. The dating app Tinder has also been banned.

The Tik Tok app, owned by the Chinese company ByteDance, has been downloaded nearly 39 million times in Pakistan.