The body directed to impose a ban on the app after reportedly after receiving a "number of complaints from different segments of the society".

PTA said it had earlier issued a "final notice" to TikTok and gave the application "considerable time to respond and comply with" instructions for development of an effective mechanism for proactive moderation of "unlawful online content", reports Dawn News.

However, the company "failed to fully comply" with PTA's instructions after which the authority decided to ban it in the country.

Criticising the move, Bakhtawar Bhutto-Zardari, the daughter of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto, tweeted: "Immoral content is not on tiktok, it’s embedded in our sexist society where women cannot wear yoga pants on tv or drive at night, & children are picked up & assaulted. Have deteriorated so much. Look what’s happening in madrassas, in open public spaces- the problem is NOT tiktok."

The video-sharing app, which is owned by China’s ByteDance, has been downloaded almost 39 million times in Pakistan and is the third-most downloaded app over the past year after WhatsApp and Facebook, according to analytics firm Sensor Tower, reports Dawn News.