ISLAMABAD: Pakistanis are still facing issues accessing social media websites and apps like Twitter, Facebook and YouTube on Saturday with the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) saying that a decision would be made soon.
Users on Saturday also complained they were unable to connect to these platforms without using a Virtual Private Network. As per Downdetector, outage reports for Twitter were concentrated in Karachi, Lahore, Rawalpindi and Peshawar.
On Tuesday, the government blocked mobile broadband and social media websites in the aftermath of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Chairman Imran Khan’s arrest and subsequent unrest in the country.
The internet outage added to those woes, costing Pakistan as much as $53 million a day according to global internet monitor NetBlocks, with mobile data coverage powering economic transactions, including credit and debit card point-of-sale terminals.
However, on Friday, a PTA official said that that broadband services were currently being restored.
“Instructions (on unblocking social media websites) are also expected soon,” the official said, just as when Twitter and YouTube also came back online in Pakistan, but access proved to be short-lived.
Mobile broadband subscribers jumped from 56 million in 2018 to 116 million in 2022 – around half of the country – according to the telecom regulator.
Internet censorship has been common in recent decades, even under Khan’s government.
The suspension of mobile broadband services earlier led to widescale criticism with telecommunication companies in Pakistan citing a loss of Rs2.46 billion in revenue, which translates to a dent of Rs861 million in taxation.
An official from a telecom company stated that companies earned around 60 per cent of revenues from mobile broadband services. When divided by 365 days, daily revenues are around Rs820 million. Meanwhile, 35 per cent of the revenue enters the government’s kitty.
The assessment is based on the fact that telecommunication companies earned around Rs500 billion from cellular services last year.
