Banning TIKTOK in Pakistan is the right decision?

What is TikTok?

TikTok is a video-sharing social media networking platform with over 800 million active users. It has over 2 billion downloads worldwide (SensorTower, 2020). It has over 33 million downloads on the App Store which is even more than Youtube in the first quarter of 2019. 41% of the users on TikTok are between the age of 16 and 24 (Globalwebindex, 2019). Tiktok has over 43 million downloads just from Pakistan. 

Promotes creativity

The unique and interesting interface of TikTok enables a large number of population to be creative. The app offers a variety of tools and features which helps content creators to explore endless possibilities. Where there is criticism, there is also a huge chunk of content that is appreciable, unique, and interesting. 

Captured New Demography

The majority of the Pakistani nation belongs to the middle and lower-middle-class who can access the internet at cheap rates with the help of 3G and 4G services nationwide. Furthermore, the availability of affordable smartphones has made it easier for people to access social media. Similar social media applications such as Facebook’s Instagram have targeted an audience that is comparatively from a higher class of the society. It is used by brands, fashion bloggers, influencers, and so on. While Google’s Youtube is more of a platform where creators are encouraged to make high-quality video content of longer duration. 

On the contrary, TikTok is a platform where videos of a few seconds can be made easily anywhere and anytime just from an ordinary smartphone. The friendly user interface helps people to create content instantly with ease. Moreover, it helps common people who are not very techy in exploring new possibilities.

Source of Income

Just like Youtube, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok content can also be monetized. Taking the example of Pakistan, a large number of TikTok influencers who are known as TikTok stars belong from a backward or rural area and TikTok has changed their lives. They have millions of followers from all over the world. These TikTok Stars with thousands and millions of followers get a lot of paid endorsement offers for brands. They are also contacted for Public relations (PR) and marketing which provides them with a good source of income.

How TikTok Content is Inappropriate?

I want to ask this question from the readers, How the content of TikTok is harmful to society? Content on Twitter and Youtube is more inappropriate for youth as it is not regularized properly.

The content which is criticized by the masses on TikTok is not the only content on the application. Just like any other platform whether it is reading books or watching Netflix. There are all kinds of things and banning is surely not the solution. 

TikTok content neither promotes anti-state nor blasphemous content. I cannot understand the concerns of PTA regarding the inappropriate content. TikTok policy does not promote any kind of intimacy and pornographic content. 

TikTok should be unbanned

In this world full of miseries, TikTok is a source of entertainment and a platform where every kind of person can watch content from all over the world. There are videos on nature, religion, sports as well. Banning such a platform like this will only deprive the nation of the digital world in which Pakistan is already way behind the rest of the world.

We need to end the Banning Culture in Pakistan. Today TikTok is banned, tomorrow another such platform will be banned as well. When Youtube was banned in Pakistan, the Pakistani Youtube community suffered a lot and they were unable to grow and progress while Indian Youtubers got an advantage as there wasn’t any competition from the neighboring country Pakistan.

Everything in this world has pros and cons, just because of some of the negativity, banning is surely not the solution. I would like everyone to think about such bans otherwise our society won’t progress.