Difficulty accessing WhatsApp, Instagram in Pakistan: Hundreds of complaints, but the government is unaware

Difficulty accessing WhatsApp, Instagram in Pakistan (BBC News)

2 hours ago

For the past several days, ordinary internet users, freelancers and business people have been complaining that sometimes their audio messages are not being sent on WhatsApp, sometimes no images are being downloaded or uploaded. This complaint is also being repeated again and again that instead of refreshing Instagram, a circle just keeps spinning.

These complaints have increased in Pakistan since December 1st because earlier the Ministry of Interior had given a deadline of November 30 to register virtual private networks (VPNs).

There have been reports of internet speed being affected in various cities of the country. According to Down Detector, an organization that monitors internet access disruptions, hundreds of complaints of limited access to platforms like WhatsApp, Instagram, Facebook and TikTok have been received in several cities including Karachi, Lahore, Rawalpindi, Islamabad, Peshawar in the last 24 hours.

In this regard, many users said that they are facing these problems while using both mobile internet and Wi-Fi, while many VPNs are also unable to solve this problem for them.

However, on Sunday, Minister of State for IT Shaza Fatima denied these reports and said that ‘data service has been fully restored in the country. All apps on data service are working 100 percent correctly.’

So where is the problem? To find answers to these same questions of users, the BBC has also contacted the PTA spokesperson, but we could not get their answer by the time of writing.

WhatsApp is difficult to send messages, but the government is unaware

According to Down Detector, several users have filed complaints of difficulty accessing WhatsApp, Instagram and TikTok in the last 24 hours.

According to the data released by it, 52% of the complaints from users about WhatsApp were that they were facing difficulty in sending messages, while 32% of the app was not working at all and 16% were unable to send voice messages.

It says that most of the complaints related to TikTok and Facebook are about ‘server connection’, while Instagram users complain that their feed is not refreshing, the server connection cannot be established or there is a problem with the app itself.

But speaking to private TV channel Geo News, Minister of State for IT Shaza Fatima denied these complaints and claimed that ‘data service has been fully restored across the country.’

She said regarding the ban on X that only ‘two percent of Pakistanis use it’ and that the decision was taken by the Interior Ministry in the context of national security. However, she said that if the issue was freedom of expression, Facebook and YouTube would also have been blocked, which was not the case.

When the anchor asked why freelancers and people associated with e-commerce were worried if everything was restored, her reply was that ‘Pakistani industry uses broadband, it is not being shut down. All services on data service (also) are fully functional.’