The federal government has again told major social media platforms, including TikTok, YouTube, Instagram and X, to establish local offices in Pakistan and ensure full compliance with Pakistani laws, warning that enforcement measures, including possible restrictions or bans, may be considered if they do not cooperate with lawful requests related to harmful or illegal content.
The warning was delivered during a briefing at the Ministry of Interior attended by representatives of local and international media, where Minister of State for Interior Talal Chaudhry and Minister of State for Law and Justice Barrister Aqeel Malik spoke about the government’s concerns and its latest reminders to social media companies.
Talal Chaudhry said that despite a formal notice issued on July 24, social media companies have not taken sufficient steps to follow Pakistan’s regulations. He said platforms act quickly to delete child exploitation material and anti-Israel content, but do not respond with the same speed to violent anti-Pakistan posts.
Chaudhry said extremist groups continue to use these platforms to disseminate propaganda and that several accounts spreading terrorism and hatred are being operated from India and Afghanistan. He said authorities have identified 19 terrorism-linked accounts originating from India and 28 from Afghanistan.
He said banned organisations, including Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA) and Balochistan Liberation Front (BLF) — which he described as also designated as terrorist groups by the United Nations — are actively spreading violent content on social media platforms.
On cooperation by platforms, Chaudhry said Telegram has shown good cooperation on Pakistan’s complaints, while X has given the weakest response. He said that if platforms can automatically remove child pornography, they should be able to use similar technology to automatically remove terrorist content.
In a separate appearance on Dawn News programme “Doosra Rukh,” Malik said the government may consider banning social media platforms if they do not cooperate or coordinate with authorities.
Barrister Aqeel Malik said social media companies apply what he described as double standards toward Pakistan, stating that content related to Palestine is removed within 24 hours while requests from Pakistan are neglected. He said the government is urging platforms to share technical details, including IP addresses, to support investigations, and is pressing platforms to deploy stronger artificial intelligence tools capable of automatically detecting and removing accounts involved in extremist activities.
Malik said the government is prepared to take firm steps against platforms that do not cooperate, drawing comparisons to Brazil. He said Brazil temporarily blocked X for non-compliance and imposed penalties, and referenced a $5.2 million fine that he said was paid, adding that content taken out of context was removed. He also noted that X had about 22 million users in Brazil before it was blocked on August 30 by Brazilian Supreme Court judge Alexandre de Moraes for failing to comply with a series of court orders aimed at combatting disinformation. Malik said Pakistan could consider similar measures and could take the issue to an international court if necessary.
