<\/p>\n
Multiple internet users in Pakistan reported on Sunday they were experiencing \u201crestricted access\u201d to virtual private networks (VPNs), alongside poor internet connectivity.<\/p>\n
VPNs are widely used around the world to access content that may be inaccessible or blocked for internet users in their home country. In the case of Pakistanis, VPNs are used to access X, among other restricted websites.<\/p>\n
In August<\/a>, the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) was clamping down on VPN usage, aiming to prevent access to the already banned social media platform X.<\/p>\n Information Minister Attaullah Tarar said in September that X had been banned<\/a> due to national security issues, not to curb freedom of expression. He added that \u201cseparatists and terrorists\u201d were using the platform against Pakistan, which could not be allowed.<\/p>\n In the same month, the PTA dispelled rumours<\/a> and clarified that VPNs in the country were not being blocked.<\/p>\n However, multiple X users in Pakistan took to the platform on Sunday and said that VPNs were being slowed down and access was being restricted.<\/p>\n According to the outage tracking website Downdetector<\/a><\/em>, users reported A graph on the site shows that VPN Unlimited<\/a> users were still reporting problems, with a peak of 10 reports submitted by 6:15pm. Similarly, Tunnelbear<\/a> users submitted reports as late as 7:29pm.<\/p>\n Dawn.com<\/em> has approached the PTA for comment on the outages.<\/p>\n Some X users resorted to publishing posts listing VPN services that are still functional in Pakistan.<\/p>\n Some Dawn.com<\/em> staff also experienced issues when connecting to VPN services. It, however, worked for others.<\/p>\n Digital rights advocate Farieha Aziz told Dawn.com<\/em> that she was experiencing issues connecting to VPNs Cloudflare and Orbot, adding that she had been experiencing \u201cvery patchy internet\u201d.<\/p>\n Speaking about the throttling, she said, \u201cIt\u2019s completely arbitrary, disrupting everyday life and work and no one in the PTA and government has yet given a straight answer \u2014 other than partially on VPNs which they have stated they are in the process of registering.\u201d<\/p>\n Digital rights activist Usama Khilji told Dawn.com<\/em> that he \u201cchecked with people\u201d who confirmed they are experiencing errors with their VPN services.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is in line with the state\u2019s plans to clamp down on VPNs and enforce strict censorship and surveillance over citizens,\u201d Khilji said. \u201cThis will have an adverse impact on businesses, especially financial and tech-related industry.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Multiple internet users in Pakistan reported on Sunday they were experiencing \u201crestricted access\u201d to virtual private networks (VPNs), alongside poor internet connectivity. VPNs are widely used around the world to access content that may be inaccessible or blocked for internet users in their home country. In the case of Pakistanis, VPNs are used to access […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":86923,"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\/11\/10205316a52ae8a.jpg?r=205337","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-86922","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-top-news"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86922","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=86922"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86922\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/86923"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=86922"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=86922"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=86922"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\noutages on VPN services VPN Unlimited and Tunnelbear, with nearly all reported issues related to connecting to a virtual private network.<\/p>\n