TikTok says it has received no communication from PTA despite efforts

TikTok — the highly popular video-sharing app — said on Saturday it had "received no communication" from the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) despite the regulator's acknowledgement and appreciation of the company's efforts to suits the country's laws and to extend its content moderation.

In a handout , TikTok said it had been "sad that our users and creators in Pakistan are still unable to access TikTok, quite one week after our services were blocked by the PTA".

Earlier this month, the country's regulatory body had issued instructions to impose a ban on TikTok after receiving a "number of complaints from different segments of the society against immoral/indecent content" that was shared on the app.

PTA said it had earlier issued a "final notice" to TikTok and gave the appliance "considerable time to reply and comply with" instructions for development of an efficient mechanism for proactive moderation of "unlawful online content".

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However, the corporate "failed to completely comply" with PTA's instructions after which the authority decided to ban it within the country.

In today's statement, TikTok said it had "made concerted efforts to deal with questions from the govt of Pakistan around our content moderation process, including significantly increasing the capacity of our local language content moderation team".

"After TikTok was blocked in Pakistan, we continued to interact with the PTA to demonstrate our commitment to suits local laws and further enhance our content moderation capacity. Though the PTA acknowledged and appreciated these efforts, our services remain blocked within the country and that we have received no communication from PTA," the statement added.

The company said it had been unfortunate that the app's users within the country were "unable to showcase their talent and creativity", adding that the TikTok community's "creativity and keenness has brought joy to households across Pakistan and opened vital economic opportunities to incredibly talented creators".

TikTok said it had been continuing to interact with the govt and it hoped that "our productive dialogue with the PTA can bring assurance of the government's commitment to a stable, enabling environment."

The company said it might assess its allocation of resources to Pakistan's market just in case the govt decided to get rid of the ban on the app.