For the third day in a row, popular microblogging site “X,” formerly known as Twitter, experienced service disruptions in Pakistan on Monday.
Long-term platform inaccessibility has plagued users across the country, adding to the already unsettling online experience non the weeks preceding, during, and following the bitterly contested February 8 national elections.
Downdetector reports that X services experienced disruptions at approximately 1pm. Earlier in the day, there were also disruptions on the social networking site; according to reports, it was inaccessible from 10:30 am and services were back up by noon.
After the now-former commissioner Rawalpindi claimed to have participated in the process and accused others of fraud and anomalies during the polls on February 8, there have been interruptions over the past three days.
Commissioner Liaquat Ali Chatha of Rawalpindi accepted responsibility for what he called a “heinous crime,” implicating not just himself but also the nation’s top judge and the chairman of the election commission, putting them in the public eye.
The “confessions” coincided with the ECP being the target of multiple accusations of vote-rigging following a turbulent week. The results are still being clouded by widespread manipulation, raising more doubts about the validity of the votes.
Prior to this, as reported by NetBlocks, the measurements showed that X/Twitter had been blocked in Pakistan for a full day, which was the longest period of time that there had been nationwide internet disruptions.
At 4:45 p.m. on Sunday, Downdetector identified at least 16 reports nationwide of possible problems with X; at one time, that number increased to 83. The depressing message “this site can’t be reached” was displayed to users who attempted to access X, according to real-time social media and internet outage monitoring firms.
Furthermore, the problems weren’t limited to X; last month, PTCL, Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, YouTube, and other well-known sites as well as Google services also reported outages.
