The Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) heaped pressure on TikTok, issuing a warning over its continued display of content deemed inappropriate which it fears is having a negative impact on society.

In a statement, the regulator said it received numerous complaints regarding the display of “immoral, obscene and vulgar content” on TikTok. There are concerns this is having an “extremely negative” effect on “society in general and youth in particular”.

Following the complaints, the PTA issued a formal warning to TikTok yesterday (20 July). While not stating what action it was mulling, the Authority previously banned streaming app Bigo Live citing the same reasons, after its parent companies failed to respond to a call to “moderate the socialisation and content within legal and moral limits”.

In its warning to TikTok, the PTA called for the introduction of “a comprehensive mechanism to control obscenity, vulgarity and immorality”.

TikTok’s transparency report for 2019 showed no legal government requests for content removal were made by the country, however, it did remove 3.7 million violating videos in the back half of the year.

The app currently faces scrutiny in the US over its security credentials, and was one of 59 banned by India in a spat with China.