YouTube down in Pakistan during Imran Khan's power show

 JournalismPakistan.com |  Published: 22 August 2022

YouTube was reportedly down in Pakistan during Imran Khan's speech, leading to significant social media reactions. The service was restored after a brief outage, but it sparked widespread discussion online.

Summary

ISLAMABAD—Popular video streaming website YouTube was allegedly taken down in Pakistan on Sunday evening during the speech of ousted Prime Minister Imran Khan. The site, however, was later restored.

Many social media users started expressing their views on the emerging situation, which made #YoutubeDOWN top trend on Twitter, with more than 14k tweets in a short time.

Erum Zaeem, a Karachi-based journalist tweeted: "#YouTubeDOWN @YouTube in Pakistan is down Just to stop viewership and live coverage of Jalsa hosted by Chairman @PTIofficial @ImranKhanPTI at #Rawalpindi."

"Confirmed. #YouTubeDOWN in Pakistan to stop the broadcast of Imran Khan's speech in Rawalpindi," TV anchor Wajahat Kazmi tweeted.

Pakistan Telecommunication Authority PTA did not make a statement on the suspension.

Also, the pro-PTI BOL News transmission remained suspended for several hours after it aired Khan's speech despite a PEMRA-imposed ban on live coverage. The channel reportedly aired the PTI chairman's address in Rawalpindi with a time delay as directed by the regulator.

KEY POINTS:

• YouTube outages coincided with Imran Khan's Jalsa in Rawalpindi.
• The hashtag #YoutubeDOWN trended with over 14k tweets.
• BOL News also faced transmission issues after covering Khan's speech.
• The Pakistan Telecommunication Authority did not comment on the situation.
• The outage raised concerns over media freedom and censorship in Pakistan.