PTA tells court which complaints about online content it rejects, from duplicates to anonymous reports
In a filing in the children's social media case, the regulator lists the grounds on which it turns away reports of unlawful material and explains why blocking on encrypted sites is hard.
The Pakistan Telecommunication Authority will not act on an anonymous complaint about online content, it has told the Islamabad High Court. In a reply in Writ Petition No. 4163 of 2026, a case about protecting children from social media, the authority set out six grounds on which it turns reports away.
The PTA takes complaints from the public and other stakeholders through an online portal and reviews them under the applicable laws. It says a complaint must carry "enough details to identify the material" so that it can examine the content.
Six grounds for rejection
A complaint may be rejected if it lacks the information needed to identify the material, duplicates an earlier complaint, concerns a matter already under investigation, needs a detailed examination of documents and oral evidence, comes from someone not directly affected, or is anonymous, which may not be entertained under the prescribed rules. When it rejects a complaint, the PTA must tell the complainant.
Why blocking is hard
The reply also describes technical limits. Restricting content on sites that use HTTPS may require coordination with the internet service provider or the platform's administrator, and the options open to the PTA depend on the type of content, the law and the technical arrangements in place.
That repeats a point from the PTA's first reply in the case, filed on 1 October. There it said HTTPS encryption makes blocking individual pieces of content nearly impossible, and that it had reviewed more than 1.789 million links and URLs and blocked more than 1.577 million illegal ones. It added that social media companies are not registered in Pakistan and had not responded to its request to appoint local compliance and grievance officers.
The court has issued notices to the ministries of Information Technology, Information, Interior and Law, as well as to the PTA and PEMRA. The PTA told it that legal action against cybercrime and obscene material is the mandate of the National Cyber Crime Investigation Agency, and listed awareness campaigns run with UNICEF, TikTok, Meta and GSMA and a toll free helpline for children's online exploitation.
The petition asks the court to order an age verification system for social media users and a law to protect children online. The PTA says it cannot go beyond its legal mandate and has asked the court to dismiss the petition in part, to the extent that the relief sought lies outside it. It also says a Social Media Protection and Regulatory Authority is being established under the PECA Amendment Act.
