ISLAMABAD, AUGUST 16: Data on social media content banning over the previous three and a half years has been made public by the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA), showing the disparities in success rates among various categories.
The category with the lowest blocking rate, defamatory or impersonating content, was seen between January 2021 and June 2024. Only 7,353 of the 13,305 URLs that were processed for blocking were successful, yielding a 55.26 percent success rate.
Social media sites blocked 307,610 of the 363,111 URLs that the PTA reviewed over the course of the previous three and a half years related to various categories of unlawful material, yielding an overall blocking rate of 84.72 percent.
Following was content pertaining to contempt of court; 2,480 URLs in this category were processed by the PTA. 1,496 of them were blocked by social media sites, yielding a 60.32 percent blocking rate. The success percentage of content directed towards Pakistan’s defense and security was somewhat higher. 101,682 URLs were processed by the PTA, of which 74,224 were banned, or 73 percent of the total.
Social media networks banned 5,621 of the 6,853 URLs that the PTA analyzed in the category of miscellaneous material, yielding an 82.02 percent success rate.
Content disparaging the grandeur of Islam had an even higher banning percentage—46,103 URLs were analyzed, and 37,479 of them were banned, yielding an 81.45 percent success rate.
On the extreme end of the spectrum, a substantial enforcement effort was made against hate speech and sectarian content; 28,922 out of 34,673 analyzed URLs were prohibited, yielding an 83.41 percent blocking rate.The category with the greatest blocking rate, decency and morals, processed 158,054 URLs, of which 152,646 were banned, resulting in a success rate of 96.46 percent. In addition, a 100% success rate was attained in blocking all 51 URLs associated with proxy material.
