Internet connectivity continues to pose a significant challenge in Pakistan, persisting even a week after the conclusion of the general elections. X, formerly known as Twitter, has been inaccessible in the country for over 36 hours following the admission by Rawalpindi’s commissioner of assisting in election manipulation. The outage commenced on February 17th around 10 pm local time and briefly returned to normalcy for 30 minutes the following day before remaining unavailable since then.
The commissioner of Rawalpindi, Liaqat Ali Chattha, announced his intention to surrender to the police on Saturday, confessing to his involvement in rigging the elections. He claimed to have personally overseen the alteration of 70,000 votes, purportedly stating, “We converted the losers into winners.”
According to NetBlocks, a cybersecurity watchdog, metrics indicate that X/Twitter has been restricted in Pakistan for 24 hours, marking the longest in a series of nationwide outages. Downdetector, a website outage tracker, has been documenting numerous X outages across the country, affecting both the app and website. Users report being unable to load posts on the platform, while some cannot access any web pages at all.
READ MORE: PSL 9 – Match 3 Preview: Multan Sultans Welcome Karachi Kings to Their Home Ground.
The nation has faced frequent disruptions to internet and social media platforms in recent months, particularly since the aftermath of the 2024 general election.
On Saturday night, users expressed frustration over the prolonged unavailability of X. Furthermore, last month saw disturbances on various platforms including Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, YouTube, Google services, and the internet service provider PTCL.
The Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) has remained silent on the matter, issuing no official statements regarding the ongoing disruptions.
