TikTok must continue its strict content control in light of the increase in political content. A prominent Pakistani official, however, did not completely rule out the platform complying with a contentious data law should it be passed.
TikTok in Pakistan is no longer the same so-called ‘cringe’ app it was widely perceived as a few years ago.
It has now completely penetrated other social media applications—as content creators often share their TikTok hijinks on Instagram, users on Twitter (now X) often stumble into a political edit, and WhatsApp statuses are not spared of the platform’s existence too.
Due to the country's growing youth population, Pakistan's social media environment is changing quickly and has an impact on how the government views it.
The Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) released the results of the 2023 census, which show that over 30.5% of Pakistan's population is between the ages of 13 and 29. Over 44% of eligible voters are between the ages of 18 and 35.
With a young person well aware of the country’s numerous challenges, the social media they typically utilize is teeming with political discourse and viewpoints, which may vex the political regime. The current civilian and military leadership have already stated their worries multiple times.
TikTok can scarcely afford to be careless when it comes to content moderation on its site, given that it has been banned four times in the last year due to "immoral content."
In an email conversation, Dawn.com was told by Fahad Khan Niazi, the head of public affairs and government relations at TikTok Pakistan, about the platform's moderation procedure and policies.
Shaza Fatima Khawaja, the state minister for IT, met with Niazi in March and asked the platform to play an "important role in promoting a positive image of Pakistan."
Speaking to Dawn.com on the tremendous efforts put forth to uphold the platform's content moderation procedures, Niazi revealed that TikTok employs over 40,000 people in the fields of trust and safety worldwide.
"A combination of technologies and moderation teams to detect, review, and, where appropriate, remove content or accounts that violate" the community guidelines are some of the methods the platform employs, according to him.
Additionally, TikTok has "Trust and Safety Teams" that, because of their acute awareness of Pakistani quirks, provide a localized perspective to the way the platform implements its rules and enforces its content regulations.
“We cover more than 70 languages and dialects, including Urdu and other commonly spoken local languages,” Niazi highlighted.
In terms of the quantity of requests from governments to remove or limit content or accounts, Pakistan came in sixth place out of 72 countries, according to TikTok's Government Removal Requests Report for July–December 2023.
Although TikTok got 303 requests from Pakistan in total (each request may include numerous accounts or pieces of content), the number of users in Pakistan using TikTok was not validated, so it was impossible to determine the scope of the request.
Interestingly, Pakistan took the top place among 72 countries in the number of content (not accounts) against which action was sought for July-Dec 2023.
A total of 15,397 “content” links were requested action against, out of which 12,392 were “actioned” for going against TikTok guidelines while 2,126 were actioned for violating local laws.
During the course of six months, 488 accounts were requested; 270 of those accounts had action taken on them for violating TikTok principles, and the remaining 59 accounts were "actioned" for breaking local laws.
With a removal rate of 93.5%, or the proportion of requests approved for both content and accounts combined, the country ranked tenth out of all those with at least ten requests.
Govt requests vs. user rights
According to Niazi, TikTok takes action against content based on two primary factors: if the video is determined to violate Pakistani laws or the platform's community guidelines.
Posts that breach the laws of Pakistan would probably remain inaccessible to users of that nation, even though content that violates the platform's policies would be removed.
The GSB Hub published this content on 16 Oct,2024.