Monday marked the third day in a row that X’s social media services were unavailable in Pakistan due to widespread claims of election tampering and a high-ranking poll official’s open admission of manipulating votes.
The outage was detected a little after 10:30 am and lasted until noon, according to Downdetector. At 12:24 p.m. (local time), services were resumed; however, around 1 p.m., they were interrupted once more.
According to Downdetector, an outage tracking tool, Karachi, Rawalpindi, Lahore, and Gujranwala were the most affected areas.
Officials from Pakistan allege he oversaw vote-rigging.
Liaquat Ali Chattha, the commissioner for Rawalpindi, stated that he was in charge of manipulating the results of the election to benefit Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) and that the chief justice and election commissioner were also involved. Accepting responsibility, he resigned.
Social media users who demanded an electoral audit to address allegations of fraud soon after Chattha made it public gave the “stolen mandate” back to the PTI party under Imran Khan, which has more than 180 members in the 266-member National Assembly.
PTI demanded a judicial investigation into the tampering of election results.
Authorities impose social media restrictions
An official source informed the Press Trust of India on Monday that “the Pakistani authorities found no other way to control that criticism and chose to disrupt X in the country.”
“This is the third consecutive day that people in Pakistan are facing disruptions in accessing the social media platform; even with the use of virtual private networks (VPN), they are facing issues,” he stated.
X has been off since Saturday
Following Commissioner Chattha’s resignation, protests over claims of election fraud led to national disruptions in Pakistan on Saturday, according to Internet watchdog Netblocks.
The Pakistani Human Rights Commission denounced the shutdown, pointing out its detrimental effects on the country’s economy and violations of democratic rights.
The Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) has not disclosed the cause of the X disruption. Authorities in Pakistan had earlier, on February 8, shut down mobile and internet services in honour of election day.