Pakistani Government Officials Forgot To Turn Off The Cat Filter During Facebook Live

The provincial government of Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa discovered a way to increase the ratings of their press conferences. But by accident. The live stream of regional minister Shaukat Yousafzai speaking with journalists went viral after someone that was in charge of it forgot to turn off the cat filter. This resulted in Yousafzai and some other politicians growing pointy ears and whiskers.

Immediately, Facebook users began to flood the stream with comments. There’s “a cat in the cabinet,” someone said. Others were a bit more specific as well as poetic: “Shaukat Yousafzai looks like a cat – Meow meow meow.” However, the live stream continued.

Even an AFP reporter caught a glimpse of it; however, minutes after the press conference ended, it was deleted from the official Facebook page of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party that is in power in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.

The screenshots, though, will remain on the Internet forever.

Yousafzai confirmed the incident to AFP saying that it happened by accident: “The cat filter was turned on by mistake, let’s not take everything so seriously.”

A press statement issued by the PTI party’s social media team described the incident as “human error” reading: “All necessary actions have been taken to avoid such incidents in future.”