<\/p>\n
Internet monitor Netblocks reported a nationwide disruption of social media platforms on Sunday as the PTI held a virtual fundraising telethon.<\/p>\n
\u201cLive metrics show a nation-scale disruption to social media platforms across Pakistan, including X\/Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube,\u201d the internet tracking agency said at 6:13pm.<\/p>\n
It added that the incident came as \u201cpersecuted former prime minister Imran Khan\u2019s party, PTI, launches its election fundraising telethon\u201d.<\/p>\n
Netblocks Director Alp Toker told AFP<\/em> the disruptions were affecting network providers across the country.<\/p>\n \u201cSuch nation-scale social media targeting political activities is almost unprecedented at this scale \u2014 Venezuela is one other country that has used similar measures to limit opposition speeches and rallies,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n In a similar incident last month, internet outages were also reported<\/a> during a PTI virtual power show.<\/p>\n The PTI had announced earlier today that it would hold a virtual fundraising telethon and manifesto launch at 9pm.<\/p>\n However, around 6pm users reported being unable to access social media platforms in several areas of the country. They also complained about internet services being slow.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, PTI\u2019s Zulfi Bukhari said the internet shutdown was aimed at stopping the party\u2019s fundraiser.<\/p>\n The party itself called the internet shutdown \u201cabsolutely shameful\u201d and demanded that the IT minister resign \u201cfor this continuing damage to Pakistanis\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cAnother PTI online event. Another internet shutdown,\u201d said party leader Taimur Saleem Khan Jhagra.<\/p>\n According to a report by Surfshark, a virtual private network company headquartered in Lithuania, a half-year analysis of internet shutdown based on the Internet Shutdown Tracker revealed that Pakistan was responsible for three of the 42 new restrictions worldwide, which were imposed following Imran\u2019s arrest.<\/p>\n At the time, access to Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube was restricted in the country. At the same time, several temporary cellular network disruptions were also witnessed across the country for several days afterwards.<\/p>\n The Surfshark report ranked Pakistan behind Iran and India as the countries leading the list of regimes that imposed internet restrictions during the first half of 2023 with Asia being the focal point of most internet shutdowns.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Internet monitor Netblocks reported a nationwide disruption of social media platforms on Sunday as the PTI held a virtual fundraising telethon. \u201cLive metrics show a nation-scale disruption to social media platforms across Pakistan, including X\/Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube,\u201d the internet tracking agency said at 6:13pm. It added that the incident came as \u201cpersecuted former […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":45026,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/i.dawn.com\/large\/2024\/01\/07183706fa18bc2.jpg?r=183827","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-45025","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-pakistan"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45025","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45025"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45025\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/45026"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45025"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45025"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45025"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\u2018Absolutely shameful\u2019<\/h2>\n