Users in Pakistan have been unable to access X, formerly known as Twitter, for over 36 hours. The platform, which saw a rebranding under Elon Musk's ownership last year, has been completely unavailable across the country, leaving Pakistani users frustrated and questioning the cause of the outage.
Multiple news outlets and online reports have confirmed the nationwide outage, with users unable to access the platform through their mobile apps or web browsers. Social media has been flooded with complaints and confusion from Pakistani users, many expressing concern about the lengthy service disruption and lack of official communication.
Internet blackouts and a suspension of mobile phone service were reported across Pakistan on election day, which a Ministry of Interior spokesperson said was done by the government in response to "recent incidents of terrorism" in the country and meant to "maintain the law and order situation and deal with possible threats.”
Two days after the election, on February 10, Pakistan experienced another large-scale X outage as evidence of election rigging began to surface online, and political critics spoke against the county's polling process.
On February 17, the commissioner of Rawalpindi, Liaqat Ali Chattha, said he would hand himself over to police after admitting he helped to manipulate election results and "personally supervised" the switching of 70,000 votes—"we converted the losers into winners,” he reportedly said.