We Asked People Who Film Themselves Breaking Laws on TikTok: Why?

It’s a cold January evening in Punjab’s Sialkot district, around 150 miles from Pakistan’s capital, Islamabad. Zohaib Ali, 18, is sitting on the roof of his house in Kharota Syedan village talking about the tragedy that haunts him. 

In December 2019, Ali was making a TikTok video with friends Ammar Haider, 17, and Ali Raza, 18, in a room that Ammar had rented. The three were filming themselves while dancing to a Punjabi song. Inspired by people who show off firearms in videos, they had a real gun.

Ali recalled Ammar accidentally pulling the trigger, killing himself. Moments before, when Ammar tried it on Ali and Raza, it did not fire. He might have assumed the gun was not loaded. 

“I stopped using TikTok after that,” Ali, a worker at a sports factory in Sialkot, told VICE World News. “Events of that day are deeply etched in my mind.”

An increasing number of TikTok users in Pakistan are making videos that blur the line between entertainment and legality. They have resulted in arrests, warnings from authorities, and even deaths. In the last six months, at least 35 people have been arrested for TikTok videos, according to media reports.

Public display of weapons can carry up to seven years in a Pakistani jail. Such content also violates TikTok’s community guidelines.

Ali said as soon as the bullet hit Ammar’s chest, he rushed to his [Ammar’s] home and informed his elder brother, Murtaza.

“He blamed me for his brother’s death. He kept telling me that he would get me arrested,” Ali recalled. 

Frightened and confused, Ali said he went to the police the same evening and told them the sequence of events. He spent two months in a juvenile detention facility, and was released on bail in March 2020.

His friend Raza has been in prison since January last year, charged with murder. 

In October last year, Pakistan authorities banned the short-video app on the grounds that it hosted “immoral” and “indecent” videos. The ban was lifted after 10 days. 

“It should be permanently banned. There are other ways of entertainment for youth. I can’t forget my blood-soaked hands,” said Ali.

Neighboring India banned TikTok along with 59 other Chinese-owned mobile apps in June last year and recently retained the ban.

TikTok is widely popular in Pakistan. With 39 million users, it was the second most downloaded app in the country in 2020, according to analytics firm Sensor Tower. 

Earlier this month, a TikTok video made by a 32-year-old murder suspect named Babar Ali inside Multan prison went viral. In the video, he can be seen performing on Punjabi songs in handcuffs and fetters. “The video was made by my friends who came to meet me and they uploaded it,” he told VICE World News in an interview from prison.

In July last year, Pakistan’s Punjab police dismissed female constable Wafa Tauqeer who was fond of making TikTok videos featuring songs from Indian and Pakistani movies.

In a video message, Tauqeer said she was wrong to film the videos in police uniform but that her dismissal was unfair.

Experts believe that makers of the app are not doing enough to check these violations. 

“Given that TikTok is an app used primarily by a younger demographic, it is really important to have clear and accessible messaging about safety. Innovative ways through short, informative videos rather than just including it in the terms of service is important,” Nighat Dad, an Islamabad-based digital rights activist, told VICE World News.

Islamabad-based human rights lawyer Osama Malik believes the app takes too long to react to such content. “The users were arrested on violation but the videos remain available on the app.”

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