PESHAWAR: Peshawar High Court on Tuesday issued notice to the Social Media Protection and Regulatory Authority (SMPRA) seeking its response to a petition requesting for complete ban on TikTok insisting that the popular short-video sharing app has failed to stop the uploading of “blasphemous and indecent” material on it.
A bench consisting of Justice Ijaz Anwar and Justice Farah Jamshed adjourned the hearing into the plea after lawyers for the petitioner, Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) and federal government made their points about the matter.
The petitioner, lawyer Imran Khan, requested the court to direct the respondents, including the PTA, Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) and ministry of information, to permanently ban TikTok in Pakistan for the “continued, recurring and consistent breach of community guidelines, which violated the Constitution of Pakistan, provisions of the Prevention of the Electronic Crimes Act (PECA), Rule 3 of the Removal and Blocking of Unlawful Contents Rules, 2021, and provisions of the Pakistan Penal Code”.
He also sought the court’s orders for respondents against allowing such applications in the future, which affect moral and ethical values of Pakistani people.
A lawyer has petitioned against uploading of ‘blasphemous and indecent’ material on short-video sharing app
Barrister Babar Shehzad Imran and Jehanzeb Mehsud appeared for the petitioner and PTA, respectively, whereas deputy attorney general Akber Yousaf Khalil represented the federal government.
During the hearing, Justice Ijaz Anwar remarked that if there was a political post and the government wanted to block it, that happened immediately.
The bench wondered if political posts could be blocked, what difficulties were there in blocking immoral posts.
Barrister Babar said that “vulgar and immoral” videos were uploaded on the TikTok app, which was causing deterioration in society, adding that the court had previously sought a report from the PTA regarding the setting up of a firewall.
PTA lawyer Jahanzeb Mehsud informed the court that the installation of the firewall was merely based on news reports, and in reality, no such firewall existed.
He said that on TikTok and other social media platforms, if a viewer watches something once, similar videos start appearing before him or her.
The counsel claimed that the PTA was doing as much as it could on its part. He added that millions of videos containing obscene content had been blocked, though it became difficult to immediately control a specific single video.
He said that the PTA was working on this issue and had blocked numerous accounts and whichever account was complained about gets blocked.
While TikTok’s own representative was also present in Islamabad, he said the PTA remained in contact with him.
Mr Mehsud pointed out that a separate authority, the Social Media Protection and Regulatory Authority, had been established to regulate social media and it was looking into the matter.
Barrister Babar argued that if the government didn’t control TikTok, people would get enraged and take to the streets against it.
He requested the bench to seek a report from the SMPRA over the issue.
In the petition, which was filed in 2024, the petitioner claimed that as per current statistics, there were almost 54.4 million Pakistani users on the TikTok making it seventh amongst the top seven user countries.
He claimed that this platform had been used transgressing Islamic norms by disseminating anti-Islamic, vulgar, indecent, sectarian and disrespectful content, contravening the parameters delineated by the Constitution, Peca, PPC and the Removal and Blocking of Unlawful Contents Rules, 2021.
Referring to superior court judgements and government action, the petitioner said that in March 2021, the mobile app was banned by PTA on the orders of the PHC.
He added that after promises and commitments made by the company, it was allowed to function but it overlooked the necessary measures to curb the actions that violated the country’s laws.
Published in Dawn, June 17th, 2026