Online Dating: Pakistan blocks ‘Apps’ to find partners, claiming they are immoral

Pakistan has blocked five partner-finding apps, including Tinder and Grindr, for their “immoral and obscene content.”

The state telecommunications oversight body said yesterday that it had blocked access to “Tinder,” “Tagged,” “Scout,” “Grinder,” and “SayHi” because the said applications did not comply with local laws.

Namely, the Pakistan Telecommunications Authority announced that it had informed the companies to remove the dating services, but that they did not react in time and were therefore blocked.

Management has stated that applications can be unblocked if they start complying with local laws and moderating obscene and immoral content.

Tinder and Grindr are popular in the United States and other Western countries, but not so much in Pakistan. In the last 12 months, Tinder has been downloaded 440,000 times in Pakistan and 13 million times in the United States, writes CNN.

Grindr, who describes himself as “the biggest social media app for gays, bisexuals, and transsexuals,” has been downloaded 300,000 times in Pakistan in the last year compared to nearly two million in the United States.

The Pakistan Telecommunications Authority also threatened to block TikTok , a popular video-sharing application.

In July, it issued a “final warning” to TikTok over “immoral, obscene, and vulgar content” that can be seen in the app.