PTA Raises Issue of Blocking of Twitter Accounts

Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) raised the issue of blocking of Twitter accounts and reported to Twitter administration that a total of 333 handles suspended for posting tweets about Indian Occupied Jammu & Kashmir.

Recently, Twitter has sent notice to the Deputy Speaker National Assembly Qasim Khan Suri for raising voice over the ongoing human rights violations in Indian-Occupied Kashmir.

PTA Raises Issue of Blocking of Twitter Accounts

Suri has been informed through a letter that Twitter has received a request from India regarding your tweet account that claims the content violates the laws of India. We have not taken any action on the reported content at this time as a result of this request. As twitter strongly believes in defending and respecting the voice of our users. It is our policy to notify our users if we received a legal request from an authorized entity to remove content from their account”. However, the Deputy Speaker stood his ground and said that he cannot be silenced.

Earlier Twitter has sent notices to the President of Pakistan Dr. Arif Alvi and Minister for Communications Murad Saeed along with several other politicians for raising voice over the ongoing human rights violations in Indian-Occupied Kashmir.  The recent actions by the social media site have sparked reactions among the masses.

According to PTA, it was reported to twitter administration a total of 333 handles suspended for posting tweets about Indian Occupied Jammu & Kashmir.

PTA, in addition to raising its concerns with Twitter administration about the biased approach towards Pakistani Twitter users in strong words, has also requested Pakistani social media users to report any Twitter account suspended on the pretext of posting pro-Kashmir content to PTA at [email protected].

In response, PTA received 333 such complaints which were sent to twitter for restoration. However, only 67 accounts (20%) have so far been restored by Twitter. Twitter has not responded officially nor has given any reason of suspension of these accounts.

PTA is already putting in efforts to engage Twitter to ensure freedom of expression for social media users in Pakistan. In this context, PTA has invited Twitter’s administration for a meeting in Pakistan or elsewhere to have meaningful discussions and devise a workable arrangement. However, Twitter has yet to respond.

It may also be added that under Prevention of Electronic Crime Act 2016, PTA is the sole body to block access to unlawful content on the Internet and to take up with relevant platforms where blocking by PTA is not possible on technical grounds. PTA will keep taking up the matter with Twitter and urge them to discontinue their biased approach towards Pakistani users who are advocating rights of the oppressed people of Indian Occupied Jammu and Kashmir.

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