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Technology

Pakistan

Filtered to Controversies ×
90 articles stable

A 2021 cryptocurrency-adoption peak has given way to coverage of Pakistan’s tighter digital controls, China-linked surveillance infrastructure, and renewed crypto-finance experimentation.

Who they are

Pakistan appears in technology coverage as a large, strategically consequential digital market whose government decisions shape platform access, communications privacy, fintech adoption and online speech. Stories place it alongside India and other Asian markets for consumer-product rollouts, while also linking it to Chinese technology suppliers, U.S. political and crypto actors, and major platforms including TikTok, BlackBerry, Netflix and OpenAI.

The recent arc

Coverage peaked in 2021Q3 around Chainalysis reports naming Pakistan among the countries leading a 881% year-over-year increase in global crypto adoption, alongside Vietnam and India. Earlier reporting had centered on state access to communications: BlackBerry initially said it would leave after rejecting data-monitoring demands, then remained after authorities dropped those demands; Pakistan also lifted a TikTok ban after the company agreed to moderation assurances.

The recent arc

The latest phase is more sharply focused on digital control and the contested economics of access. Pakistan suspended mobile services during the February 2024 election, parliament passed a social-media-control bill in January 2025, and Reuters and Wired reported in September on alleged mass phone tapping and Chinese-built, Great Firewall-style monitoring systems supplied by Geedge Networks. Alongside that clampdown, the country remains a target market: OpenAI added it to the ChatGPT Go rollout, while ZAR raised funding to test USD-backed stablecoins there, citing the World Bank’s assessment of a very large unbanked population. Careem’s decision to suspend its Pakistan service illustrates the pressure on consumer internet businesses from competition, economic conditions and capital constraints.

The tension

Pakistan’s coverage repeatedly turns on the conflict between expanding digital participation and state control over the networks enabling it. The same market that attracted crypto-adoption attention, low-cost AI products and stablecoin pilots has imposed platform-content requirements and faced reports of broad surveillance infrastructure tied to Chinese providers. Its crypto outreach to World Liberty Financial and engagement with U.S. actors adds another layer: financial-technology ambitions are being pursued amid scrutiny of political influence, regulation and information controls.

Why it matters

If this trajectory persists, Pakistan could become an important test case for whether fintech and AI services can scale in a populous, underbanked market where network governance is becoming more restrictive. ZAR’s local stablecoin test and OpenAI’s regional expansion point to continued commercial interest, but Careem’s exit and the surveillance and social-media reports suggest that operating conditions may determine which services can sustain investment and user trust. The outcome remains uncertain because the corpus shows both demand-side opportunity and material policy, security and economic constraints.

Pakistan has appeared in 90 articles since 2015-07. Coverage peaked in 2024Q2 with 3 articles. Frequently mentioned alongside India, Pakistani, Careem, Facebook.

Articles
90
mentions
Velocity
0.0%
growth rate
Acceleration
0.000
velocity change
Sources
27
publications

Coverage Timeline

2024-12-05
BleepingComputer 9 related

Microsoft and Lumen's Black Lotus Labs find Russia-linked Turla hackers hijacked Pakistan-based hackers' servers to launch their own attacks since December 2022

The notorious Russian cyber-espionage group Turla is hacking other hackers, hijacking the Pakistani threat actor Storm-0156's infrastructure …

2024-12-04
Wired

Malwarebytes: 77% of ad accounts used for “malvertising”, like in search results, are used just once and 90% of the ad fraud comes from Pakistan and Vietnam

Lily Hay Newman / Wired : See also Mediagazer

2023-12-19
Agence France-Presse 15 related

Former Pakistan PM Imran Khan, in jail since August 2023 for allegedly leaking classified documents, uses ElevenLabs' AI voice clone tool for a campaign speech

Agence France-Presse :

2023-11-17
Engadget 4 related

Google finds and helps patch a Zimbra Collaboration email server zero-day used to steal data from governments in Greece, Moldova, Tunisia, Vietnam, and Pakistan

It links the attacks to past Chinese APT activity, but does not formally attribute the attacks.  —  It also points out that Winter Vivern (suspected Belarus) also exploited this after a patch was rele...

2022-06-30
Rest of World 2 related

Qurium report: 1M+ bots are targeting Iranian #MeToo activists on Instagram in a coordinated harassment campaign using social media marketing firms in Pakistan

Andrew Deck / Rest of World : Source: Qurium Media Foundation .

2022-03-10
The Caravan 1 related

Investigation details how caller ID app Truecaller, which has 205M+ MAUs in India, uses India's weak data privacy laws to build its user information database

In October 2021, I called a journalist based in Pakistan, who did not know me.  Surprisingly, they greeted me by my name when they received the call.

2021-12-09
CIGI

A look at Cardano, a controversial blockchain-based project led by Ethereum cofounder Charles Hoskinson that aims to build a national ID system for Ethiopia

There are countless examples of the dangers posed by national ID schemes, including from Kenya, Uganda, Pakistan, India and elsewhere. Tweets: @hackylawyer , @hijodelcuervo , @ahcastor , and @bronwenm...

2021-09-18
Forbes 1 related

CEO of US-based cybersecurity company Exodus Intelligence says India bought and likely weaponized its Windows zero-day research to spy on China and Pakistan

A U.S. company's tech was abused by the Indian government, amidst warnings Americans are contributing to a spyware industry already under fire for being out of control.

2021-02-10
Rest of World

How a Pakistan-born developer's open letter to Tim Cook helped bring the Urdu language typeface to Apple devices

a script like “the wings of flying geese”—users resort to transliteration with Latin fonts. @AlizehKohari investigates. https://restofworld.org/... Tori Elliott / @telliotter : If you need something h...

2020-11-30
Rest of World

How students in a remote part of Pakistan mobilized during the pandemic to demand better internet from the military-run unit controlling it

but the internet is the worst of all, and a growing movement is making a lot of noise about it By @AlizehKohari https://restofworld.org/... Anup Kaphle / @anupkaphle : How far would you go to get inte...

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Quarterly Coverage

Top Sources

Narrative

TEXXR tracks 79 tech news articles mentioning Pakistan, dating back to July 2015. The biggest stories include BlackBerry Confirms It Will Exit Pakistan After Rejecting Data Monitoring Demands and Chainalysis: global cryptocurrency adoption grew 881% YoY, led by Vietnam, India, and.... Frequently covered alongside TechCrunch, Careem, Manish Singh, TikTok, and BlackBerry.

Key Moments

2024Q2consumer -100pts; competition +67pts
2024Q3competition -67pts; regulation +50pts
2025Q1regulation +50pts

Relationships

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