Islamabad:
Since he saw thousands of comments that justify the recent murder of a teenage Tiktok star in Pakistan, Sunaina Bukhari is considering giving up her 88,000 followers.
“In my family it was not an accepted profession at all, but I had managed to convince them and even ended up creating my own business,” she said.
So last week, Sana Yousaf was shot to death outside her house in the capital Islamabad by a man whose progress she had repeatedly rejected, police say.
News about the murder led to an outflow of comments during her last post – her 17 -year birthday feuding, where she blasted the candles on a cake.
Between condolence messages, some accused her for her own death: “You harvest what you sow” or “It’s deserved, she used to Islam.”
Yousaf had collected more than a million followers on social media, sharing her favorite cafes, skincare products and traditional Shalwar Kamez clothes.
Tiktok is wildly popular in Pakistan, partly because of its availability to a population of low literacy levels. On it, women have found both audience and income, rarely in a country where fewer than a quarter of women participate in the formal economy. But as Tikkok’s views have risen, so have so efforts that the police platform.
Pakistani telecommunications authorities have repeatedly blocked or threatened to block the app over what it calls “immoral behavior”, in the midst of setbacks against LGBTQ and sexual content.
Tiktok has promised to better moderate content and block millions of videos that do not meet its social guidelines as well as at the request of Pakistani authorities.
After Yousaf’s murder, Bukhari said, 28 that her family no longer backs her commitment to the industry.
“I’m the first influencer in my family, and maybe the last one,” she told AFP.
Only 30 percent of women in Pakistan own a smartphone compared to twice as many men (58 percent), the largest gap in the world, according to the mobile gender report from 2025.
“Friends and family often discourage them from using social media for fear of being sentenced,” a statement from the Digital Rights Foundation (DRF) states.
In southwestern Balochistan, a man admitted to orchestrating the murder of his 14-year-old daughter earlier this year over Tiktok videos, which he said compromised her honor. In October, police in Karachi in the South of South announced the arrest of a man who had killed four women’s relatives over “unseemly” Tiktok videos.
These murders are reviving each one reminiscent of Qandeel Baloch, one of the country’s first breakout -social media stars whose videos shot her for fame. After years in the limelight, she was suffocated by her brother.
Violence against women is pervasive in Pakistan, according to the country’s Human Rights Commission, and cases of women being attacked after rejecting men are not uncommon.
“This is not a crazy man, this is a culture,” said Kanwal Ahmed, who leads a closed Facebook group of 300,000 women to share advice. “Every woman in Pakistan knows this fear. Whether she is on Tiktok or has a private Instagram with 50 followers, men show up. In her DMs. In her comments. On her street,” she wrote in a post.
In the fifth most popular country in the world, where 60 percent of the population is under 30, says the director of digital rights organization Bolo Bhi, Usama Khilji, “Many women do not put their profile picture but a flower, an object, very rarely their face”.
“Misogyni and patriarchy widespread in this community are reflected in the online space,” he added. A 22-year-old man was arrested over Yousaf’s killing and will appear in court next week.
