Services of social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter, remained disrupted for the third consecutive day in Pakistan on Monday.
According to Downdetector, the outage was reported a little after 10:30am and persisted till noon. Services were restored around 12:24pm but were again disrupted after 1pm.
Downdetector, which tracks outages by collating status reports from several sources including users, showed that the areas most affected were Karachi, Rawalpindi, Lahore and Gujranwala among others.
- Service Disruption: X services have been disrupted for the third consecutive day amid allegations of rigging in the February 8 polls.
- Allegations and Denials: Former Rawalpindi commissioner Liaqat Ali Chattha accused the Election Commission of Pakistan and Chief Justice Qazi Faez Isa of involvement in rigging, which was denied by the electoral watchdog and the top judge.
- Nationwide Outage: Netblocks reported a nationwide disruption to X, calling it the latest in a series of internet censorship measures imposed by authorities as reports of election fraud emerge.
- Internet Restrictions: Digital rights activist Usama Khilji highlighted that X was inaccessible for many users except via select VPNs, with most users complaining of VPNs being blocked and slow internet.
- No Official Response: The Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) remained silent on the disruption, redirecting queries to the interior ministry, while activists criticized the blanket ban as a violation of fundamental rights and called for transparency.
