Murder of TikTok star highlights Pakistan's unease with women online

Since seeing thousands of comments justifying the recent murder of a teenage TikTok star in Pakistan, Ms Sunaina Bukhari is considering abandoning her 88,000 followers.

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ISLAMABAD —

"In my family, it wasn't an accepted profession at all, but I'd managed to convince them and even ended up setting up my own business," she said.

Then recently, Ms Sana Yousaf was shot dead outside her house in the capital Islamabad by a man whose advances she had repeatedly rejected, the police said.

News of the murder led to an outpouring of comments under her final post — her 17th birthday celebration where she blew out the candles on a cake.

In between condolence messages, some blamed her for her own death: "You reap what you sow" or "it's deserved, she was tarnishing Islam".

Ms Yousaf had racked up more than a million followers on social media, where she shared her favourite cafes, skincare products and traditional shalwar kameez outfits.

TikTok is wildly popular in Pakistan, in part because of its accessibility to a population with low literacy levels. On it, women have found both audience and income, rare in a country where fewer than a quarter of the women participate in the formal economy.