Social media companies have acted on only 23.7 percent of PTA content removal requests, according to a written reply from the Ministry of Interior. The Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA), the federal telecom regulator, had sought the removal of material the authorities treat as unnecessary, anti-state, or tied to other sensitive issues.
Compliance was higher when the requests concerned counter-terrorism content, at 47 percent. The ministry also said platforms have still not adopted the regulations framed by the PTA.
How platforms responded
Among the services named in the reply, Facebook recorded the highest share of complied requests, at 38.1 percent. X, formerly known as Twitter, acted on 7.4 percent. YouTube’s rate was 1.9 percent.
Those figures sit well below the counter-terrorism compliance rate and leave most ordinary PTA content removal requests unanswered, on the ministry’s own numbers.
Punjab’s share of anti-state filings
Punjab was the main source of requests about online material directed against the state or government. Filings from the Punjab government made up 97.7 percent of that category, the ministry said.
The imbalance means almost all recorded anti-state content complaints in this tally originated in one province, rather than being spread evenly across federal and provincial channels.
Gaps in online threat handling
The ministry acknowledged that Pakistan has no organised, integrated system at the federal and provincial levels to deal with online threats. It pointed to a shortage of trained analysts in the relevant institutions and in open-source intelligence cells—teams that watch publicly available online material.
Security and intelligence agencies, it added, cannot keep up round-the-clock surveillance of the online space under current arrangements.
NACTA funding and next steps
The same reply set out the funding position of the National Counter Terrorism Authority (NACTA), the statutory body focused on counter-terrorism strategy. NACTA asked for more than Rs2.98 billion for the 2026-27 financial year. Only Rs1.33 billion has been released for the current year.
The ministry described NACTA as having no power to make arrests or exercise other law-enforcement authority. It said the body is to be turned into the National Counter Terrorism Division.
Aasan alfaaz mein
Social media companies ne PTA ki zyada tar content hataane ki darkhwaston par amal nahi kiya—sirf 23.7 percent par.
Facebook ne sab se zyada darkhwasten maani, lekin X aur YouTube ka rate bohat kam tha.
Anti-state content ke mutaliq almost tamam darkhwasten Punjab se aayi.
Iska matlab yeh hai ke online material control karne ka nizam abhi kamzor hai, aur logon ko jo content dikhta hai us par sarkari darkhwaston ka asar limited hai.
