PTA 'developing mechanism' to limit children's access to TikTok

PESHAWAR: Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) has informed a Peshawar court that the authority was devising a mechanism to bar children’s access to TikTok, ARY NEWS reported.

During a hearing for action against indecent content on TikTok at a Peshawar court, PTA officials and deputy attorney general presented a compliance report, highlighting measures to be taken to remove such content.

“We are devising a mechanism to bar children’s access to TikTok,” a PTA counsel said adding that mostly, children aged between 14 and 18 years are using TikTok.

He said that hundreds of thousands of videos are uploaded to the short video app in a day, however, they are removing indecent content from it on regular basis. “A focal person from TikTok will also be appointed soon,” the report presented before the court said.

The report further shared that a ban is imposed on the app on the directives of the Sindh High Court.

A recent report shared that the Chinese short video app Douyin, the Chinese version of TikTok, said on Saturday that all of its authenticated users below the age of 14 will now access the app in a “youth mode”, in its push to shield the young from inappropriate content.

In the youth mode, under-14 users can only access the app for up to 40 minutes a day, and only between 6 a.m. and 10 p.m., Douyin, owned by Beijing-based ByteDance, said in a statement.

The measure to protect the young was the most stringent in the history of the platform, Douyin said.