The warning came during a briefing in Islamabad by State Minister for Law Barrister Aqeel Malik, who said the government could even consider taking the matter to the International Court of Justice.
Malik referenced the Brazil Supreme Court’s June 11 ruling, which held platforms accountable for certain illegal third-party content. In that decision, six out of eleven judges supported imposing fines and requiring platforms to remove harmful posts, a precedent Pakistan may follow if platforms do not cooperate.
The minister criticised what he called inconsistent behaviour from social media companies, noting that posts related to Palestine were removed within twenty four hours, yet the same platforms refused to share IP addresses linked to terrorist accounts.
Minister of State for Interior Talal Chaudhry also reminded companies of the government’s July 24 directive to open local offices in Pakistan. He said that terrorists were using social media freely and several platforms were offering weak responses to official requests.
According to Chaudhry, authorities traced nineteen terrorism-related accounts to India and twenty eight to Afghanistan. He questioned why child pornography could be auto-deleted by platforms, but content linked to terrorism was not removed with similar urgency.
He urged social media companies to deploy AI-based systems to automatically delete accounts and posts associated with terrorism and reiterated the government’s demand for opening offices inside Pakistan.
The warning comes as Islamabad intensifies its crackdown on anti-state digital campaigns. The National Cyber Crime Investigation Agency has registered three hundred fifty six FIRs nationwide for online anti-state propaganda up to September 13, while seven hundred eighty nine enquiries have been launched to investigate individuals accused of targeting state institutions through social media.
