LAHORE: A lawyer has approached the Lahore High Court seeking a ban on TikTok, an Android-based social media video application, in Pakistan for being a source of vulgarity and pornography.

“TikTok is a great mischief of modern times. It is destroying the youth and promoting immoral activities,” states Advocate Nadeem Sarwar in his petition.

The Federal Ministry of Law, Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) and the Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority (Pemra) have been listed as party in the petition.

The application in-question was created by a Chinese company and introduced in overseas market last year, says the petition.

The lawyer pleads that the application has been causing negative social impacts, wastage of time, energy and money and nudity, source of harassment and blackmailing.

He says the same application has been banned in Bangladesh and Malaysia for its pornography and inappropriate content and its use for mocking people.

He pleads that Pakistan is an Islamic country and it is the duty of the state to take steps to enable its Muslim citizens to live their lives in accordance with basic principles of Islam. The lawyer contends that a lot of tragic incidents of blackmailing have already been occurred where people recorded videos secretly and make them viral on TikTok. He claims that a girl also committed suicide out of fear of family after a video of her dancing in classroom filmed by her friend went viral on the application in-question. He submits that before more such incidents occur the government must ban the application.

The lawyer asks the court to direct the respondents to impose a complete ban on TikTok in Pakistan for degrading culture and encouraging pornography.

He also seeks a direction for the law ministry to initiate measures for a legislation aimed at protecting online privacy of children. He says the Pemra be ordered to ensure that videos made on TikTok are not broadcast on television channels.

Published in Dawn, August 4th, 2019