Pakistan tops South Asia in social media complaints

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan has emerged as the leading country in South Asia for submitting complaints to social media platforms, according to official statistics.

In the past year alone, Pakistan requested the removal of 126,000 posts that spread hate content. The Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) also sought the closure of over 1,000 websites, URLs, and blogs that were publishing content against security forces.

The PTA’s requests were directed at major social media platforms including X (formerly Twitter), Facebook, TikTok, and others. The complaints addressed issues such as online fraud, religious intolerance, and content targeting institutions and constitutional figures.

Since 2016, Pakistan has recommended the removal of 1.4 million pieces of objectionable content from various online sources including websites, blogs, and social media pages.

Of these, 1.307 million posts have been successfully removed, with 1 million complaints specifically targeting immoral content.

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Requests to social media platforms included over 173,000 posts from Facebook pages, 130,000 complaints to TikTok, and 62,000 complaints directed to YouTube.

Additionally, 93,000 complaints were sent to Twitter, and 27,000 to Instagram. Furthermore, 100,000 complaints were made to close URLs spreading other types of immoral content.