TikTok announced on Wednesday that it had deleted more than six million videos in three months in Pakistan.

The Chinese app seeks to avoid a permanent ban in the deeply conservative country, which takes a dim view of its presence.

The application has already been closed twice in 2021 by the authorities for "indecent" content.

She has since made a commitment to moderate the videos broadcast.

This enormous removal work makes Pakistan "the second largest market for deleted videos after the United States, where 8,540,088 videos have been deleted," the app said in its transparency report.

Not too much skin in the videos

About 15% of the removed videos were for “adult nudity and sexual activity”.

The videos have been removed as a result of user or government reports.

In this Muslim country, for example, it is taboo to broadcast videos in which the protagonists' clothes show too much skin.

In early June, small anti-Tiktok rallies were held to denounce the dissemination of LGBT + content.

“It could be the result of government pressure, or it could reflect the sheer volume of content produced given the popularity of the platform, or both,” said Nighat Dad, a digital rights activist.

Social media platforms are more willing to remove and block content in Pakistan to escape full bans.

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Creeping censorship

The announcement comes as the app faces a new legal battle in Karachi, where a judge has asked telecommunications authorities to suspend it for broadcasting "immoral content."

However, the platform continues to operate in the country.

Free speech advocates have long criticized the Pakistani government's rampant censorship and control of the Internet and media.

Dating apps have been blocked, and in 2020, regulators asked YouTube to immediately block access to all videos they deemed “objectionable” in the country.

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