Islamabad (AFP)

Pakistan on Tuesday blocked access to Tinder, Grindr and several other dating sites accused of spreading "immoral" and "indecent" content, just days after its regulator threatened to shut down YouTube in its territory for reasons similar.

The Pakistan Telecommunications Authority (PTA) announced in a statement that it had blocked access to Tinder, Grindr, SayHi, Tagged and Skout, these applications not having responded to several of its requests asking them to "moderate (content ) streaming in accordance with Pakistani laws ".

The ban is justified by the "negative effects of (these) immoral / indecent content," PTA said.

On Thursday, the Pakistani regulator had already asked YouTube, a subsidiary of Google, to immediately block videos considered "objectionable", that is "vulgar, indecent, immoral content, nude images and hate speech".

In July, he sent a final warning to the Chinese application TikTok, ordering it to filter all content deemed "obscene", then temporarily blocked the Bigo Live application, as well as the game PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds.

Defenders of freedom of expression immediately criticized this new decision by the regulator.

"Moral policing is itself immoral," said Shahzad Ahmad, director of Bytes For All, which defends online rights.

"If adults choose to be on an app, it's not for the state to dictate whether or not to use it."

"We can only condemn this violation of privacy," he added, calling the ban "completely ridiculous".

In a short response to AFP, Tinder said it was "happy to be able to discuss (its) product and (its) moderation efforts with the Pakistan Telecommunications Authority" and "hope to have a fruitful conversation."

Grindr is an app for gay people who risk prison in Pakistan, a legacy of an anti-sodomy law dating back to British colonial times.

They are even liable to execution under Sharia law, also applied in this conservative Muslim country.

But unlike neighboring Iran or Saudi Arabia, Pakistani justice has never convicted anyone for such acts.

Asked by AFP, Grindr did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

© 2020 AFP