Pakistanis are making up to two million daily attempts to access restricted explicit content using unregistered VPNs, despite government efforts to block such sites, according to sources cited by Geo News.
The Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) has intensified its efforts, blocking over 844,000 immoral websites and more than 100,000 offensive URLs. However, widespread VPN use to bypass restrictions has led to complaints of slow VPN speeds, prompting the PTA to block unregistered VPNs due to security risks and unauthorized access to illegal content. The authority is now expediting the whitelisting of authorized VPNs to address these issues.
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Since the VPN registration process began in 2010, around 20,500 VPNs have been registered, covering over 1,422 companies, and the PTA is working to streamline compliance further. Officials assured that the VPN registration process aims to support secure browsing while preventing illegal access.
Recently, the Ministry of Religious Affairs urged the PTA to block pornographic, blasphemous, and harmful content, expressing concern over Pakistan’s high ranking in viewership of such content and its impact on societal morals. As of July 2024, the PTA has blocked 1.3 million URLs deemed “anti-Islam, indecent, or immoral” as part of a larger web-monitoring effort.
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A report shared with the Peshawar High Court revealed that the PTA’s system processed 1.38 million URLs, blocking 93.84% (or 1.303 million) for inappropriate content. Of these, 1.02 million were related to “decency and immorality,” with others blocked for security risks, defamation, sectarian hate speech, and contempt of court. Additionally, specific platforms have been targeted, with 147,569 Facebook URLs, 125,600 TikTok URLs, and 53,872 Twitter URLs blocked. Since 2020, TikTok alone has removed over 113,000 items deemed immoral or anti-Islamic, including 24,800 this year.