February 2025 will be a somber anniversary for the PMLN-ruled nation. One whole year of intermittent internet shutdowns in Pakistan has now turned into a chronic condition. What began as infrequent outages became an unrelenting pattern when the political tension reached a crescendo. The internet would go dark, leaving the citizens in the digital dark. Not a coincidence. It occurs at times of political instability when PMLN in collaboration with PTA gives a soft yet firm command: “Shut it down.”
It started to become disturbingly normal as former Prime Minister Imran Khan has asked his followers to stage a protest in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KPK). Immediately, social media was off-limits. Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp—disappeared. All these, which most people use as a means of communication and connection, went down with no official word on what was happening. Things were only getting worse when, after the massacre in Islamabad and D Chowk protests, the same thing kept happening. When unrest takes hold, the Pakistani government and PTA seem all too eager to pull the plug on online discourse.
This is not about preventing violence or securing security; it’s about control. The internet becomes a tool of power, wielded to silence dissent and stifle the voices of the people. While the rest of the world is enjoying the free flow of information, Pakistan’s citizens are left at the mercy of a government that’s increasingly hostile to the idea of open discussion. What makes this even more unsettling is the fact that Meta’s platforms, which include Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp, were down not just for a few hours but for days. This wasn’t an accidental glitch—this was censorship on a massive scale.
Internet shutdowns in Pakistan: Meta says it’s a technical glitch, but it’s depressing Imran’s followers
According to tracking by Downdetector, the latest outage on Meta platforms indicated problems as users in Pakistan and everywhere else were unable to gain access to WhatsApp, Facebook, and Instagram. Instead, reports flooded in from users who were greeted by a generic error message – “Service unavailable.” According to Meta, this issue was a “technical problem,” but no clarity about its true cause was made available.
But let’s be realistic here: the timing is too convenient to ignore. The same disruption occurred when political rallies and protests flared up. The pattern is clear—whenever there’s a potential for unrest, Pakistan’s internet infrastructure goes dark. Twitter, already banned in the country, serves as the only remaining platform for those who wish to voice their frustrations, but even this is only accessible via VPNs, that too sometimes.
It is time we ask for the truth behind these continued shutdowns. Why should it happen that only just a few months ago when political tension erupted over some protests, internet services started mysteriously being blocked? Should not the internet remain a place where people get to voice their feelings, especially during the moments of the nation’s distress?
Instagram down and WhatsApp among top Twitter trends
This internet blackout in Pakistan is a downright violation of fundamental rights. It’s not just social media; it’s the right to information, the right to communicate, and the right to join a global conversation. The digital silence imposed on Pakistan isn’t frustrating; it is dangerous. For a country with so much potential, it is a barrier to progress. We deserve better.
The government of Pakistan needs to finally end this deepening divide between the digital world and its people’s rights. Internet freedom is not a luxury—it’s a necessity. They need to stop hiding behind these convenient blackouts, allowing their people to say what they want to, without fear of being silenced by censorship.