Nepal Government Forced to Lift Social Media ban After Violent Protest, Pain & 19 Martyrs

After the clash between police and protesters took 19 lives, Nepal government bow down to uprising Gen Z force and lift the ban on social media.

Led by Gen Z in Nepal, a protest for digital freedom turned violent after the clash between police and protesters took 19 lives. The authorities had no other choice but to bow down to public pressure and take a late-night decision to lift the ban on social media.

“We have withdrawn the shutdown of the social media. They are working now,” said the Cabinet spokesman and Minister of Communication and Information Technology Prithvi Subba Gurung. "Since protests were being staged using this issue as a pretext, the decision has been taken to reopen social media sites," he further added. 

After days of frustration following the social media ban disrupting business and communication, the Nepal protest gained momentum, not just nationally, but internationally as a freedom of speech movement.

Citizens of Nepal Rally for Free Expression

On Monday, Gen Z protesters, supported by thousands of citizens, broke into the parliament complex in Kathmandu. The barricades set by police were broken, and cars and ambulances were set on fire. Police tried to control the crowd with water cannon, but later used batons and rubber bullets. Protesters carried placards with "Shut down corruption and not social media", "Unban social media", and "Youths against corruption", as they marched through the capital. 

The army was deployed as the situation worsened, and a curfew was imposed in the capital. In smaller cities across the nation, similar protests and clashes with police were seen..

As per official reports, 17 people were killed in Kathmandu, and two others were killed in a clash in the city of Itahari. Over 100 people were injured across the country.

The United Nations Office for the High Commissioner of Human Rights said it had received “several deeply worrying allegations of unnecessary or disproportionate use of force by security forces during the protests”.

"We are shocked by the killings and injury of protesters in Nepal today and urge a prompt and transparent investigation," UN rights office spokeswoman Ravina Shamdasani said in a statement. The cabinet has initiated a probe to look into the day's violence. The committee has been given a timeline of two weeks to prepare the report.

Regulation, Non-Compliance, and Ban Drama 

The Nepal government said in August that “social media firms would be given seven days to register under new regulations, including to establish a point of contact and designate resident grievance and compliance officers”.

However, major social media companies, including Meta’s Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp, Snapchat, Pinterest, X, Alphabet’s YouTube, and China’s Tencent, all missed the deadline and were later blocked. The government further noted that said social media users create fake IDs to spread hate speech and fake news, commit fraudulent activities and other crimes leveraging these popular platforms.

Talking about other platforms, Telegram messaging app was also blocked due to non-compliance in July. On the other hand, TikTok agreed to comply with the Nepalese government’s regulations, and the ban was lifted last August.

Digital freedom in Nepal

There are at least 13.5 million and 3.6 million Facebook and Instagram users in Nepal. Apart from entertainment, many of them rely heavily on social media platforms for their business. According to reports by Statista, in Nepal, ad spending in the Social Media Advertising market is expected to reach an astonishing figure of US$28.60m by 2025 and US$50.88m by 2030.

Despite the growth in social media users and popularity of short-form video content, government-imposed bans and regulatory restrictions still remain a worry for social media users to increase their digital presence.