X shutdown: Court seeks records of communication with X

Karachi: The Sindh High Court (SHC) asked the government for records of communication with social media platform X.

SHC heard the petitions against the shutdown of social media platform X, in which the petitioner's lawyer and Additional Attorney General appeared in the court.

During the hearing, the court asked the petitioner why he remained silent on the notification of X shutdown. On this, the lawyer for the petitioner said that at first the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) was not ready to accept that there was any notification of X ban, but then after three hearings, they accepted.

The court asked how controversial content can be filtered. On this, the counsel for the petitioner said that if objectionable material is identified, a complaint can be made to X. PTA should know the reasons for any complaint.

During the hearing, the Additional Attorney General said that 1,418 complaints were made to X but it removed the content on only 103 complaints, 1,138 complaints are still undecided, and correspondence with X is done through email daily.

On this the court said that X was blocked on February 17, 2024, you are showing the letter of April, where is the letter in which the complaint has been made based on reasons? You didn't put it in your document.

The court inquired about the rejection of the application for the removal of the content. This action must be before notification of closure. We want to know the reasons on which a content removal request was rejected.

To this, the Additional Attorney General replied that the correspondence with X is a confidential document but we will provide it to the court and it can provide it to the parties if it wants.

The court sought records of correspondence from X till the next hearing and said that we only need the basis of the complaint and X's reply.

Later, the Sindh High Court adjourned the further hearing of the petitions on the shutdown of X till October 8.