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South Asia Shutdowns Event
National
| Country | Pakistan |
|---|---|
| Region / City | National |
| Networks Affected | X (Formerly Twitter) |
| Time Period | 17 Feb 2024 - 07 May 2025 |
| Status | Ended |
| Reference | Open Source Link |
| Description | In February 2024, after general elections and widespread protests against vote rigging, the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) blocked X (formerly Twitter) for all Pakistani users Despite court orders from the Islamabad and Sindh High Courts to restore access, the ban persisted with only sporadic availability. Initially, the concerned Ministry had denied that the platform was banned in the country. However, in April, at the court’s request, the Ministry submitted a report in which it admitted to ordering the blocking, allegedly due to national security reasons, the platform‘s failure to register under the Removal and Blocking of Unlawful Online Content (Procedure, Oversight and Safeguards) Rules 2021, and the platform’s violation of local laws. X remained blocked in Pakistan, though it was accessible by virtual private network (VPN). Access was finally restored in May 2025. |
Unless otherwise indicated, this work by SFLC.in is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) License.