PESHAWAR: TikTok is a popular entertainment app with approximately 1.6 billion active users worldwide, but here, like many other places, it is posing a new challenge to law enforcement agencies including the police to clamp down on cognisable offences in soft form.

Police officials note with concern the increasingly disturbing trend to promote obscenity, vulgarity and brandishing of weapons to terrorise citizens: the rise of negative content on TikTok, which is increasingly influencing young people.

Police say, content creators have turned to entertainment platforms like TikTok to make money by generating more views through showcasing of weapons and promoting vulgar content that is having a negative impact on society.

In some cases, the exchange of abuses on the social media platform led to fire fight between individuals, resulting in killings.

Taking note of the increasing trend, Peshawar police recently launched a crackdown against those responsible for pushing boundaries and were promoting negative content through vulgar videos and showcasing of weapons.

According to data, 91 cases have so far been registered for vulgar content, resulting in 94 arrests. Additionally, 657 cases have been registered for showcasing weapons leading to 681 arrests.

The police data reveals that majority of those arrested are men misusing the social media platform with a significant number of cases involving the display of pistols to semi-automatic and automatic weapons on the popular platform.

A local TikToker argued that there were many reasons why people engaged in abusive conversation on live videos on the social media platform. “Some individuals believe that they will get more views than normal videos, while others do it for fame, seeking attention in form of likes, comments and followers.”

Interestingly, some individuals claim that they are trying to break free from extremism, using the platform as a space to express themselves in way they feel are liberating.

But while the crackdown helped sent out a strong message with some content creators repenting their behavior in social media posts and video statements promising to become good citizens, police say that some content creators have adopted novel methods to escape the dragnet of law by relocating to other cities to be able to upload videos from outside of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

Some TikTokers voiced their concern, arguing that the crackdown was an infringement on their right to freedom of expression and free speech.

They believed they should be free to express themselves without fear of censorship, referring to Article 19 of the Constitution of Pakistan, which guaranteed the right to freedom of expression. But police said that the freedom had limits regarding “decency and morality”.

A sociologist at the University of Peshawar said that some users might engage in such behaviour due to disconnect in their desires and reality.

“People’s desires can drive them to create negative content. The desire for attention and social media fame can lead people to create content that pushes the boundaries. This is often a result of daydreaming where people’s desires are different from reality, leading to a kind of addiction that blurs the boundaries of modesty,” the sociologist explained.

Published in Dawn, November 23rd, 2025