Karachi: Social media services went down nationwide on Sunday, causing considerable difficulties for users.
According to media reports, social media platforms across Pakistan experienced a widespread disruption on Sunday evening, coinciding with the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf’s (PTI) “election fundraising telethon.” The outage, reported by internet monitor Netblocks, affected major platforms such as X, Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube.
Live metrics from Netblocks indicated a nation-scale disruption, raising concerns about the accessibility of these platforms during the PTI’s fundraising event, scheduled for 9 pm.
⚠️ Confirmed: Live metrics show a nation-scale disruption to social media platforms across #Pakistan, including X/Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and YouTube; the incident comes as persecuted former PM Imran Khan's party, PTI, launches its election fundraising telethon pic.twitter.com/QIBGcxGty3
— NetBlocks (@netblocks) January 7, 2024
Downdetector.pk, an outage tracking website, also registered a notable increase in complaints related to service disruptions on various social media platforms, including YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, and X.
The nationwide outage of social media services led to significant challenges for users in conducting their business. Users in cities like Lahore, Karachi, and Islamabad started to report difficulties accessing social media platforms around 5:00 pm, accompanied by complaints about sluggish internet services. The disruption follows a similar incident last month during PTI’s virtual power show.
Reacting to the disruption, the PTI, through its X (formerly Twitter) account, denounced the incident as “absolutely shameful” and called for the resignation of the caretaker IT minister, holding them responsible for the ongoing impact on Pakistani citizens. The party expressed concern over the timing of the disruption, coinciding with their crucial election fundraising telethon.
Absolutely shameful! Caretaker IT Minister should resign for this continuing damage to Pakistanis https://t.co/W9pyXzRr6A
— PTI (@PTIofficial) January 7, 2024
The Pakistan Human Rights of Pakistan has condemned the services’ shutdown as a”violation of international law”.
Users state that the primary reason for the shutdown of social media services is to impede the election campaigns of political parties. The nationwide outage of social media services is causing us considerable distress.
It is noteworthy that Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) revealed on Monday that despite nationwide social media and internet disruption, the party managed to raise $264,000 in less than three hours of its election fundraising telethon.
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