X, formerly Twitter, down for the second time in less than 24 hours in Pakistan

Social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter, was reportedly down in Pakistan on Sunday after being briefly restored in the morning. The country's power outage began on Saturday evening due to allegations of electoral fraud.

Users faced slow or non-existent access to the platform as Netblocks, an independent monitor, confirmed that X was experiencing “national-level” disruptions.

“Live metrics show new nationwide X/Twitter disruption in #Pakistan amid escalating unrest and protests over election fraud allegations,” a post on X said.

On Saturday, Rawalpindi Commissioner Liaquat Ali Chatta surrendered to police after alleging that he instructed election officials under him to change the results of at least 13 MNA candidates.

However, he did not support his claims with any evidence or information about who was the beneficiary of these irregularities.

He also accused the Election Commission of Pakistan and Chief Justice Qazi Faez Isa of involvement in “rigging” – a claim rejected by the ECP and CJP.

He made such claims at a press conference in Rawalpindi when the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party protested against alleged election rigging.

Read: PTA confirms the internet has been disrupted by upgrades to combat “illegal content”.

On January 20, social media platforms in Pakistan were paralyzed as Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) held its second online power show.

Netblocks, an independent monitor, confirmed that there were “national” disruptions on platforms including YouTube, Instagram, X and Facebook.

Later, the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) claimed that the internet service was disrupted due to a technical glitch.