Internet services resume, social media apps back to life across Pakistan after brief outage

Internet service is reported to have been restored late Sunday night across Pakistan after a brief outage.

On Sunday evening,  internet services were affected by widespread outages and disruption in access to popular social media platforms nationwide.

Social media users expressed frustration over difficulties connecting to platforms like X (formerly Twitter), Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, and YouTube across Pakistan.

According to downdetector.pk, Google services and the PTCL internet service provider also experienced disruptions around 5 pm local time on Sunday.

Meanwhile, Internet monitor Netblocks reported disruption of social media platforms on Sunday in Pakistan as the PTI held a virtual fundraising telethon.

“Live metrics show a nation-scale disruption to social media platforms across Pakistan, including X-platform formerly Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube,” the internet tracking agency said at 6:13 pm PST.

It added that the incident came as “persecuted former prime minister Imran Khan’s party, PTI, launches its election fundraising telethon”.

Netblocks Director Alp Toker told AFP that the disruptions affected network providers nationwide.

“Such nation-scale social media targeting political activities is almost unprecedented at this scale — Venezuela is one other country that has used similar measures to limit opposition speeches and rallies,” he said.

There has been no statement issued by the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) related to the latest internet outage at the time of this report.