31 ms·

Nepal moves to block Facebook, X, YouTube and others

286 points by saikatsg 1y ago

CSMastermind 1y ago
Hopefully we'll get enough starlink like systems that bans like this become completely unenforceable.
- dvrj101 1y ago
  startlink like systems are just relays like wire over ocean, there are through ground stations that do all the work. Totally enforceable.
  - objektif 1y ago
    If I have my own dish directly communicating with the satellite how are they messing with my connection?
    - dvrj101 1y ago
      bro ???, your connection goes through "your dish" to satellite that goes to base station
sniffers 1y ago
Honestly, we'd all probably be better off without Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, threads, Pinterest, LinkedIn social networking, and quora. YouTube has some value but shorts being not opt out able is a serious problem. Reddit has some value too. Signal, discord, and the other realtime messengers much more of a concern.
serter5345 1y ago
[dead]
Ithrowprivately 1y ago
There are several inaccuracies in the comments here. Although in the past, simple DNS level filtering was common, Telegram's IPs are now blocked at the routing level. Is Nepal authoritarian? This is a bit complex. If they could or had the ability to enforce all of the laws on the books, then you might be able to argue that. Nepal is better characterized as loosely anarchic. The country couldn't function if all of the regulations were enforced. What works for them is rampant corruption. This is how things are accomplished. Aside from that, the state institutions are completely inept in almost every way. Even excluding corruption, there isn't enough competence to enforce an authoritarian vision. Nepotism and the other factors you would expect play a role here. The regulations which are enforced usually relate to opportunities for graft for those tasked with enforcement. Otherwise nobody can be bothered, or they don't want to rock the boat, because the person they'd take action against also has a minister or bureaucrat in their pocket. Easier for them to sit in their gov office, take milk tea, enjoy their benefits and doom scroll the day away. So while on its face, regulating who can publish a website is an authoritarian affront to free speech norms, it is better understood as a cash grab. Perhaps some high profile journalists might be targeted, that is a recurring issue in Nepal. Finally, although their Telegram efforts seem to be paying off, this latest effort seems overly ambitious. They have bitten off more than they can chew here. Business is usually conducted with a fair amount of bluster and posturing in Nepal. If tech majors simply ignore it, politicians will lose face. In general, everyone despises them already. Due to the aforementioned issues, unemployment is a massive factor in Nepal. Money comes into the country from remittance, because doing biz locally is a losing proposition. It is extremely common to see doom scrolling all around Nepal, from the KTM valley to the rural villages. Cutting off YT and FB will create a massive backlash against the universally reviled political classes. It might be hard for outsiders to understand how widely the political class is disliked for their blatant ineptitude and corruption.
rayiner 1y ago
Many countries in the region are banning social media. In Bangladesh, they recently banned Instagram, WhatsApp, and YouTube: https://www.timesnownews.com/world/asia/bangladesh-bans-whatsapp-instagram-youtube-and-other-social-media-platforms-amid-protests-article-112240168 https://www.timesnownews.com/world/asia/bangladesh-bans-what.... Of course, Bangladesh did so in an effort to suppress a national movement that actually ended up overthrowing the government. So maybe Nepal has good reasons to worry, lol.
tuktoyaktuk 1y ago
[dead]
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
wagwang 1y ago
[flagged]
maldonad0 1y ago
Good! Every country should ban social media. Enought of this psychological poison. Messaging apps are enough for long distance contact. For small scale, specialized discussion, there are forums. Mass many-to-many platforms have to go. But overall, it is imperative that people go back to "living" in the real world, instead of the fake reality created by social media.
- cogidub 1y ago
  banned whatsapp too
- cultofmetatron 1y ago
  Its a double edged sword. social media is also the only reason any of us know about the genocide going on in gaza right now. I'm pretty sure thats why there's such a rush to start locking down the internet since western governments aiding theocracies in mass murder puts a real "are we the bad guys?" kind of taste in your mouth.
  - Symbiote 1y ago
    It's widely reported in newspapers. https://www.theguardian.com/world/gaza https://www.theguardian.com/world/gaza
  - somedude895 1y ago
    > governments aiding theocracies in mass murder puts a real "are we the bad guys?" kind of taste in your mouth. Agree, and I hope the Qatari people can see that too.
  - maldonad0 1y ago
    The gaza war is all over the news.
    - cultofmetatron 1y ago
      > The gaza war is all over the news. yea, a sanitized version where a Palestinian 6 year old girl who was riddled with IDF bullets is described as a "young woman" and a young Israeli "boy" was "kidnapped at gunpoint from his tank." (he was an active IDF soldier) Lets not forget that CNN's coverage has been extremely lackluster. If they broadcast whats actually going on, Israel would be facing extreme sanctions. instead the US is sanctioning Palestinians for "bringing a war crimes accusation to trial" https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/sep/04/us-sanctions-palestinian-human-rights https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/sep/04/us-sanctions-p... The only reason we know who the real bad guys are is because we see Israelis blowing up and sniping little kids 24/7 along with countless testimonies from first responders. and worse, this post will likely get flagged because there's a large amount of people on this site who either choose to stick their head in the sand or secretly support this mass genocide.
WhereIsTheTruth 1y ago
[flagged]
qwerty456127 1y ago
> It is not wrong to regulate social media Yet it is wrong for a government to deny the people to access foreign services over the Internet when they want. That is wrong in the same sense as disallowing them to travel overseas, read untranslated books and consume services of vendors right there is. It can be sorta okay to require local ISPs stop providing necessary connectivity readily but if the users find a way, punishing them for this or actively attacking the ways they do it is wrong. Hopefully Nepal is not going this far.
- RomanPushkin 1y ago
  > Yet it is wrong for a government to deny the people to access foreign services over the Internet when they want "Services" here can be replaced with "control". I'm not super conservative, but social media sometimes do take control over our kids, and ourselves. If they could have offered a better way to content moderation, or ability to tune algorithms, that would be a great thing. I recently created YouTube algo booster (open source) that allows to take this control back a little bit: https://github.com/ro31337/youtube-algo-booster https://github.com/ro31337/youtube-algo-booster I wish there is a law that allows parents, and individuals to have control over some social media and their algorithms. For now all they do is just prevent themselves from scraping and automation
  - qwerty456127 1y ago
    > "Services" here can be replaced with "control". I'm not super conservative, but social media sometimes do take control over our kids, and ourselves. Perhaps we can think about YouTube or Facebook this way (Instagram - obviously). But I don't think Signal controls anybody yet they block it as well.
- petcat 1y ago
  Facebook and X are whatever. Nobody cares if they get blocked. But YouTube is such an incredible learning and knowledge sharing asset that I think you only hurt yourself and your own society by blocking it. Literally throwing the baby out with the bath water.
sashank_1509 1y ago
I’m a big fan of 100% anything goes free speech. But the insanity of how X has implemented this, makes me think twice. In turns out that if you allow completely free speech on a town public square, one of the most popular high engagement speech will be prejudice and hatred towards out-groups (to throw an olive branch to rightists, an outgroup can be immigrants for rightists or nazis for leftists though these days my X feed it is just anti immigrant and I don’t see much brown shirt hysteria ). Now I’m convinced, free speech maybe works in a technocracy, where the common man has no power and could scream whatever he wants and you could ignore him. In a liberal democracy, probably speech, especially speech to the masses need to be policed, because the ideas that win to the masses are just complete insanity. And so my new leaning goes, I still can’t give up on my free speech prior, I don’t mind all the insane nonsense I see on X but I would mind if someone tries to implement that in real life and the way things go, I think that’s just a matter of time.
- shdjdndn 1y ago
  Pretending that being tolerant of immigrants is even in the same fcking universe as tolerating nazis is just one of your many, many problems. You confuse “freedom of speech” and “freedom from the consequences of speech” As usual for the JAQing kind off poster here on hackynews
- FloorEgg 1y ago
  In complex environments there can often be more than one effective combinations of properties. One combination that is clearly best, one combination that is pretty good, one that is okay, etc. and a long tail of completely ineffective combinations. My point is that when education is poor quality and expensive, and attention is competitively monetized, and technology enables many to many communication with attention maximizing communication prioritized, the economic cycle is on the backend, and the world power system is being shaken up, then we get problems. The problem isn't free speech, in fact it's probably the only property worth keeping. The biggest problems are the very competitive attention economy, the late-economic-cycle deleveraging, and the very expensive and inefficient education system.
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
whoisrosh 1y ago
As someone from Nepal, Another bill was proposed in parliament that was killed due to public backlash. That bill contained language that broadly defined what counts as actionable offenses for legal proceedings. This current bill is the wolf in sheep's clothing compared to that one.Nepali politicians have always used vague language to justify their actions—like claiming TikTok "disrupts social harmony" to justify banning it. My personal understanding is this is more about control than anything else.The last mayoral election for the Kathmandu valley was won in Facebook by an outsider young candidate with no party affiliation. Legacy political parties are facing a paradigm shift they don't know how to navigate, so they want to control it. The main person overseeing this ban claims it's about tax collection we should be getting, but when last checked, companies are already paying taxes.
WhereIsTheTruth 1y ago
Any time you mention how the CIA uses social media to push their agenda (backed by evidence), your comments get flagged haha
shivajikobardan 1y ago
Finally Nepal took a bold decision on world stage. Much needed. Social media companies leech of these "unemployed" nepalese who are getting funds from remittance via saudi, qatar. The "Dalal Pujibad" as socialist aahuti says. And mass consumerism. Needs to stop. He gives an example where Nepalese migrant workers earn money making "stuffs" in Saudi, Qatar, China, Malaysia etc. And they send money back to Nepal where they now buy those items that they made. (They could be any other migrant workers). The intent of government can be questioned however But this is a right step in a forward direction anyhow. This should have been done far earlier. The blocks has been propagated fairly now. I cannot access facebook, whatsapp, linkedin, reddit (major sites, others I have not checked).
t14000 1y ago
It is great to see - all companies should comply with laws or get out of the country. Whatever the country, whatever the law, whatever the company. Never understood why "internet media" companies decided it is fine to publish without moderating. Traditional media companies know they cannot do this.
nirava 1y ago
To everyone agreeing with the decision, here's the real problem: The efforts to consolidate power, control the media, repeal stricter corruption-related laws, and allow more power and wealth to the political elite have been crazy high in the last few years in Nepal. This much has been obvious to anyone paying attention. This Social Media Ban is a pretty clear cut next logical step in that process. This could very well be a dampener, or a distraction, done in preparation for the next step. So, in theory, in the hands of a reliable government, I'd be totally for a ban. I don't want any "mainstream" social media to be above the local laws. But as it is, this is scary and will probably be looked at as an important event in history.
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
bslaq 1y ago
[flagged]
- Imustaskforhelp 1y ago
  I didn't expect to see a ragebaiter in hackernews... If you don't know what Nepal is, no worries but your comment adds nothing to HN & you were better off just searching nepal on google. :/ Please, lets not have such comments on Hackernews, like ever...
  - bslaq 1y ago
    [flagged]
  - h4ch1 1y ago
    New account whose account history is basically geared towards making bait-y comments, ex: acting like they don't even know what an HDD is. Very sad people feel the need to come on a platform like hackernews to let off steam.
    - Imustaskforhelp 1y ago
      man, the only thing that I can think of this guy is, The less I know the better.... Also I read through your comment history and you seem to refer to keystatic and zola, although I knew about zola, keystatic caught me off guard and man it was something that I exactly wanted but didn't knew how... I once vibe-coded something similar which sucks because someone mentioned and I was curious. I will definitely try out keystatic with astro templates or maybe zola too. Thanks a lot tbh (I hope that this doesn't count as straying away from the original post but just wanted to say thanks, nowadays I feel like its underrated idk, anyways thanks once again lol)
      - h4ch1 1y ago
        No worries :) I am glad it's of some use to you. Always gratifying to help someone indirectly like so. Good luck, have fun!
boxed 1y ago
https://kathmandupost.com/national/2025/09/04/nepal-bans-facebook-and-other-major-social-media-platforms-over-non-compliance https://kathmandupost.com/national/2025/09/04/nepal-bans-fac... is imo a better source for this.
- LaundroMat 1y ago
  Choice quote from the opposition in the article you linked to: "If social media is shut down, the country will become chaotic."
  - boxed 1y ago
    It's quite funny when you get pushback from maoists that you're being too extreme when attacking freedoms.
eeasss 1y ago
Great!
- guerrilla 1y ago
  Why?
  - rwmj 1y ago
    Because their algorithms designed to push content that improves "engagement" are poisonous?
    - philipallstar 1y ago
      This is like blaming poppy seeds for heroin addiction.
      - guerrilla 1y ago
        No it's not. It's like blaming heroin dealers for heroin addiction. Nobody blames the algorithms; they blame the people who made the algorithms.
    - 4gotunameagain 1y ago
      And US propaganda.
      - Cthulhu_ 1y ago
        And Russian, and your local political whatsits.
fzeindl 1y ago
Apart from the reasons for this block: Why do these decisions always have to be black and white. I believe it would benefit mental health if Facebook was blocked one day per week so people are forced to live a day without it. Same with combustion vehicles and the climate: block cars in cities a couple of days per week, individually selected per person.
- DaveZale 1y ago
  I have personally seen a couple family members go more than a little nuts on fb, and I've been stalked there. It is poison for some. Reminescent of cigarette smoking a few decades ago. "Everyone" was smoking so it was okay. Now they walk around with portable oxygen generators. If they can still walk. Repulsive addictive product.
  - thrance 1y ago
    I hadn't thought of the comparison to tobacco yet, but it's great. I wonder if social media will follow a similar trajectory, of going from the cool thing everyone picks up to a lame addicting health-destroyer. Thankfully, it's way easier to quit Facebook than smoking.
    - coldpie 1y ago
      The comparison of social media to tobacco is almost too perfect. It feels good while you're doing it and can be an effective social tool, but leaves you feeling like shit when you stop and has disastrous long-term health consequences.
      - triceratops 1y ago
        > The comparison of social media to tobacco is almost too perfect What do smokers reach for when they wake up? Their cigs. What about everyone else? Phones.
        DaveZale 1y ago
yorwba 1y ago
I wonder whether the companies that didn't register chose this intentionally because they object to the legal requirements, or whether they simply didn't have anyone in charge of compliance with Nepali law and were unaware this would happen. That they don't appear to have statements ready maybe indicates the latter?
ktosobcy 1y ago
EU should to the same (FB & X). In general anything that has "algorytmic content ordering" that pushes content triggering strong emotional reactions should be banned and burned to the ground.
- tomp 1y ago
  Why would "algorithmic" outrage-porn content (X, Meta) be any worse than human-ordered outrage-porn content (news websites)?
  - ktosobcy 1y ago
    News websites are regulated…
    - socalgal2 1y ago
      they are? As far as I can tell they are no more regulated than anyone else. There in the issue that a news site generally has limited number of contributors where has a social media site has an infinite number of contributors. In either case, it seems like the same laws apply like defamation laws, fraud laws, etc apply to the authors of the posts which might be easier to target when it’s a news site as the site itself takes responsibility for the content
      - ktosobcy 1y ago
        Yes, they are (not sure about US). In general the mere fact that there is limited number of contributors that are known and indicated authorship goes a long way. Also - all publishers have to register indicating who is behind particular "medium". Contrary, social-"media" there is no accountability. Anyone can publish anything and there is basically no information who published that. You can sue but then again publishing platform has no information about the author so the process is long and convoluted. Making social-media what it started from (network of close friends) where you only see the content they publish and requirement of actual details who is behind the particular profile (could be for pages/profiles with more than something like 10k followers, in which case - let's be honest - it's not "friend" at that point) would go a long way.
mastazi 1y ago
> Companies were given a deadline of Wednesday to register with the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology and provide a local contact, grievance handler and person responsible for self-regulation – or face shutdown. Maybe I'm missing something but it seems the requirements were pretty reasonable? I wonder why the affected companies decided to ignore them.
- SilverElfin 1y ago
  It’s not reasonable although it can link like it. Brazil demanded the same thing, and then ended up jailing local representatives (even lawyers) and was forcing the company agreed to implement the government’s censorship. Even though it violated their constitution to demand such censorship. Ultimately these policies are just anti free speech and are an indicator of authoritarianism.
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
- thomassmith65 1y ago
  The can't be bothered. FA*NG companies care about China and the USA because that's where the money is. They resentfully pay a little attention to the EU. Nobody at these companies has time for Nepal.
- dogtierstatus 1y ago
  Similar requirements exist in India too.
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
- gman83 1y ago
  I don't know Nepal's political situation, but I could imagine companies not wanting to have a potential hostage that they're directly responsible for in more authoritarian countries. Why does there have to be a contact in the country? Couldn't they have a contact outside the country?
crossroadsguy 1y ago
> Only five, including TikTok and Viber Bloody hell! Viber is alive? That was my first IM (India). Even when people had moved to WhatsApp I was sticking around as something felt less wrong on Viber (I can't recall now). But then I anyway had to move to WhatsApp. I have really not heard of it in a long time so I thought it would have be shutdown or something. And I don't recall it being from Japan either.
speak_plainly 1y ago
[flagged]
- checker659 1y ago
  You're reading into this too much my friend. Tiktok was banned for a long time just not long back. The government wants service providers to register. They're even targeting some nepali apps.
- diggan 1y ago
  > The fact that TikTok remains accessible is telling Telling that TikTok, a Chinese company (ooh the enemy!), happens to be better at following local laws than American companies? What you're seeing is companies based in the US flagrantly ignoring requests from the government to start following the law, and subsequently be banned for ignoring them. As has happened in many other countries before that.
dahsameer 1y ago
I'm from Nepal. The bans are implemented in a pretty straightforward way: ISPs simply don't resolve DNS queries for these services. switch your DNS, and you're good to go. There are 26 apps that were banned: Facebook, Facebook Messenger, Instagram, YouTube, WhatsApp, Twitter, LinkedIn, Snapchat, Reddit, Discord, Pinterest, Signal, Threads, WeChat, Quora, Tumblr, Clubhouse, Mastodon, MeWe, Rumble, VK, Line, IMO, Zalo, Soul, and Hamro Patro.
- lighttower 1y ago
  TikTok is still allowed? Isn't it the most damaging?
  - bee_rider 1y ago
    I think it less like: governments see social media sites as damaging, so they ban them. It is more like: a lot of people see social media sites as damaging, so they don’t particularly care when their governments ban them for whatever arbitrary reasons the governments come up with. So, I’d expect the more that social media sites come back online to reflect their responsiveness to dealing with government demands, not the damaging-ness.
  - lawlessone 1y ago
    >Isn't it the most damaging? Depends on who you ask. I'd consider it damaging but nowhere near as damaging as X in recent times. And would consider FB worse that both for sheer the hysteria it generates in the old.
  - noselasd 1y ago
    TikTok complied with their regulation last year. The regulations basically requires social media platforms with > 1 million nepalese accounts to get a license to operate in Nepal. The bill and requirments doesn't seem unreasonable, atleast according to https://www.lawgandhi.com/social-media-bill-2081-2025/ https://www.lawgandhi.com/social-media-bill-2081-2025/
- ivape 1y ago
  What’s the justification? Only a state religion could provide the societal justification. I don’t know, I’m recently living under Trump, so a failed authoritarian state is very new to me. Can anyone explain how normalized and day-to-day news like this is over there? For example, we really don’t know what to do with news like this here, most of us just go on with our lives.
gsky 1y ago
Good move. Hope all countries do block these apps. Whenever i open YouTube in private tab all default recommendations are garbage. vulgar and sexist videos. its worse than garbage. Just imagine how many teens lives are ruined
- haakon 1y ago
  You can block YouTube for yourself on your own, it's not difficult. You don't have to depend on the state to do it for you.
  - gsky 1y ago
    I use third party apps. My cry was for non tech people
- karmakaze 1y ago
  That's odd. I get an empty page that has text "Try searching to get started."
  - Taek 1y ago
    That's because you have history turned off. YouTube did this really weird thing where they refuse to give you algorithmic recommendations if you have history off, which includes refusing to let you watch more than a handful of shorts at a time. As someone who has been addicted to the youtube feed for a long time, it was really refreshing to have a button that basically meant I could only watch videos I knew to search for. I think they are trying really hard to pressure you into turning history back on, but I'm much happier as a person now that I'm not having videos and clickbait rammed down my throat.
    - rpdillon 1y ago
      In a private window, there is no account to check for "History is turned off". I don't think the root comment is accurate: at least in the US, I see an empty page when I visit YT in a private window.
nonethewiser 1y ago
Nepal's requirements don't seem very different than the EU. The main difference is simply that Nepal is small so the companies dont care. Social media companies must have a local contact person, office, and comply with the Directive for Regulation of Social Media Use, 2080. That law requires social media companies to remove content deemed illegal.
krunck 1y ago
In light of this I think countries are right to be wary of American media: https://theintercept.com/2025/08/25/pentagon-military-ai-propaganda-influence/ https://theintercept.com/2025/08/25/pentagon-military-ai-pro... https://archive.is/1IElr https://archive.is/1IElr
- krunck 1y ago
  Judging by the down votes I guess the US military has this system up and running. </sarc>
udave 1y ago
[dead]

286 points by saikatsg 1y ago

CSMastermind 1y ago

Hopefully we'll get enough starlink like systems that bans like this become completely unenforceable.

dvrj101 1y ago
startlink like systems are just relays like wire over ocean, there are through ground stations that do all the work. Totally enforceable.
- objektif 1y ago
  If I have my own dish directly communicating with the satellite how are they messing with my connection?
  - dvrj101 1y ago
    bro ???, your connection goes through "your dish" to satellite that goes to base station

sniffers 1y ago

Honestly, we'd all probably be better off without Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, threads, Pinterest, LinkedIn social networking, and quora. YouTube has some value but shorts being not opt out able is a serious problem. Reddit has some value too. Signal, discord, and the other realtime messengers much more of a concern.

serter5345 1y ago

[dead]

Ithrowprivately 1y ago

There are several inaccuracies in the comments here. Although in the past, simple DNS level filtering was common, Telegram's IPs are now blocked at the routing level. Is Nepal authoritarian? This is a bit complex. If they could or had the ability to enforce all of the laws on the books, then you might be able to argue that. Nepal is better characterized as loosely anarchic. The country couldn't function if all of the regulations were enforced. What works for them is rampant corruption. This is how things are accomplished. Aside from that, the state institutions are completely inept in almost every way. Even excluding corruption, there isn't enough competence to enforce an authoritarian vision. Nepotism and the other factors you would expect play a role here. The regulations which are enforced usually relate to opportunities for graft for those tasked with enforcement. Otherwise nobody can be bothered, or they don't want to rock the boat, because the person they'd take action against also has a minister or bureaucrat in their pocket. Easier for them to sit in their gov office, take milk tea, enjoy their benefits and doom scroll the day away. So while on its face, regulating who can publish a website is an authoritarian affront to free speech norms, it is better understood as a cash grab. Perhaps some high profile journalists might be targeted, that is a recurring issue in Nepal. Finally, although their Telegram efforts seem to be paying off, this latest effort seems overly ambitious. They have bitten off more than they can chew here. Business is usually conducted with a fair amount of bluster and posturing in Nepal. If tech majors simply ignore it, politicians will lose face. In general, everyone despises them already. Due to the aforementioned issues, unemployment is a massive factor in Nepal. Money comes into the country from remittance, because doing biz locally is a losing proposition. It is extremely common to see doom scrolling all around Nepal, from the KTM valley to the rural villages. Cutting off YT and FB will create a massive backlash against the universally reviled political classes. It might be hard for outsiders to understand how widely the political class is disliked for their blatant ineptitude and corruption.

rayiner 1y ago

Many countries in the region are banning social media. In Bangladesh, they recently banned Instagram, WhatsApp, and YouTube: https://www.timesnownews.com/world/asia/bangladesh-bans-whatsapp-instagram-youtube-and-other-social-media-platforms-amid-protests-article-112240168 https://www.timesnownews.com/world/asia/bangladesh-bans-what.... Of course, Bangladesh did so in an effort to suppress a national movement that actually ended up overthrowing the government. So maybe Nepal has good reasons to worry, lol.

tuktoyaktuk 1y ago

[dead]

deleted 1y ago

[deleted]

wagwang 1y ago

[flagged]

maldonad0 1y ago

Good! Every country should ban social media. Enought of this psychological poison. Messaging apps are enough for long distance contact. For small scale, specialized discussion, there are forums. Mass many-to-many platforms have to go. But overall, it is imperative that people go back to "living" in the real world, instead of the fake reality created by social media.

cogidub 1y ago
banned whatsapp too
cultofmetatron 1y ago
Its a double edged sword. social media is also the only reason any of us know about the genocide going on in gaza right now. I'm pretty sure thats why there's such a rush to start locking down the internet since western governments aiding theocracies in mass murder puts a real "are we the bad guys?" kind of taste in your mouth.
- Symbiote 1y ago
  It's widely reported in newspapers. https://www.theguardian.com/world/gaza https://www.theguardian.com/world/gaza
- somedude895 1y ago
  > governments aiding theocracies in mass murder puts a real "are we the bad guys?" kind of taste in your mouth. Agree, and I hope the Qatari people can see that too.
- maldonad0 1y ago
  The gaza war is all over the news.
  - cultofmetatron 1y ago
    > The gaza war is all over the news. yea, a sanitized version where a Palestinian 6 year old girl who was riddled with IDF bullets is described as a "young woman" and a young Israeli "boy" was "kidnapped at gunpoint from his tank." (he was an active IDF soldier) Lets not forget that CNN's coverage has been extremely lackluster. If they broadcast whats actually going on, Israel would be facing extreme sanctions. instead the US is sanctioning Palestinians for "bringing a war crimes accusation to trial" https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/sep/04/us-sanctions-palestinian-human-rights https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/sep/04/us-sanctions-p... The only reason we know who the real bad guys are is because we see Israelis blowing up and sniping little kids 24/7 along with countless testimonies from first responders. and worse, this post will likely get flagged because there's a large amount of people on this site who either choose to stick their head in the sand or secretly support this mass genocide.

WhereIsTheTruth 1y ago

[flagged]

qwerty456127 1y ago

> It is not wrong to regulate social media Yet it is wrong for a government to deny the people to access foreign services over the Internet when they want. That is wrong in the same sense as disallowing them to travel overseas, read untranslated books and consume services of vendors right there is. It can be sorta okay to require local ISPs stop providing necessary connectivity readily but if the users find a way, punishing them for this or actively attacking the ways they do it is wrong. Hopefully Nepal is not going this far.

RomanPushkin 1y ago
> Yet it is wrong for a government to deny the people to access foreign services over the Internet when they want "Services" here can be replaced with "control". I'm not super conservative, but social media sometimes do take control over our kids, and ourselves. If they could have offered a better way to content moderation, or ability to tune algorithms, that would be a great thing. I recently created YouTube algo booster (open source) that allows to take this control back a little bit: https://github.com/ro31337/youtube-algo-booster https://github.com/ro31337/youtube-algo-booster I wish there is a law that allows parents, and individuals to have control over some social media and their algorithms. For now all they do is just prevent themselves from scraping and automation
- qwerty456127 1y ago
  > "Services" here can be replaced with "control". I'm not super conservative, but social media sometimes do take control over our kids, and ourselves. Perhaps we can think about YouTube or Facebook this way (Instagram - obviously). But I don't think Signal controls anybody yet they block it as well.
petcat 1y ago
Facebook and X are whatever. Nobody cares if they get blocked. But YouTube is such an incredible learning and knowledge sharing asset that I think you only hurt yourself and your own society by blocking it. Literally throwing the baby out with the bath water.

sashank_1509 1y ago

I’m a big fan of 100% anything goes free speech. But the insanity of how X has implemented this, makes me think twice. In turns out that if you allow completely free speech on a town public square, one of the most popular high engagement speech will be prejudice and hatred towards out-groups (to throw an olive branch to rightists, an outgroup can be immigrants for rightists or nazis for leftists though these days my X feed it is just anti immigrant and I don’t see much brown shirt hysteria ). Now I’m convinced, free speech maybe works in a technocracy, where the common man has no power and could scream whatever he wants and you could ignore him. In a liberal democracy, probably speech, especially speech to the masses need to be policed, because the ideas that win to the masses are just complete insanity. And so my new leaning goes, I still can’t give up on my free speech prior, I don’t mind all the insane nonsense I see on X but I would mind if someone tries to implement that in real life and the way things go, I think that’s just a matter of time.

shdjdndn 1y ago
Pretending that being tolerant of immigrants is even in the same fcking universe as tolerating nazis is just one of your many, many problems. You confuse “freedom of speech” and “freedom from the consequences of speech” As usual for the JAQing kind off poster here on hackynews
FloorEgg 1y ago
In complex environments there can often be more than one effective combinations of properties. One combination that is clearly best, one combination that is pretty good, one that is okay, etc. and a long tail of completely ineffective combinations. My point is that when education is poor quality and expensive, and attention is competitively monetized, and technology enables many to many communication with attention maximizing communication prioritized, the economic cycle is on the backend, and the world power system is being shaken up, then we get problems. The problem isn't free speech, in fact it's probably the only property worth keeping. The biggest problems are the very competitive attention economy, the late-economic-cycle deleveraging, and the very expensive and inefficient education system.
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whoisrosh 1y ago

As someone from Nepal, Another bill was proposed in parliament that was killed due to public backlash. That bill contained language that broadly defined what counts as actionable offenses for legal proceedings. This current bill is the wolf in sheep's clothing compared to that one.Nepali politicians have always used vague language to justify their actions—like claiming TikTok "disrupts social harmony" to justify banning it. My personal understanding is this is more about control than anything else.The last mayoral election for the Kathmandu valley was won in Facebook by an outsider young candidate with no party affiliation. Legacy political parties are facing a paradigm shift they don't know how to navigate, so they want to control it. The main person overseeing this ban claims it's about tax collection we should be getting, but when last checked, companies are already paying taxes.

WhereIsTheTruth 1y ago

Any time you mention how the CIA uses social media to push their agenda (backed by evidence), your comments get flagged haha

shivajikobardan 1y ago

Finally Nepal took a bold decision on world stage. Much needed. Social media companies leech of these "unemployed" nepalese who are getting funds from remittance via saudi, qatar. The "Dalal Pujibad" as socialist aahuti says. And mass consumerism. Needs to stop. He gives an example where Nepalese migrant workers earn money making "stuffs" in Saudi, Qatar, China, Malaysia etc. And they send money back to Nepal where they now buy those items that they made. (They could be any other migrant workers). The intent of government can be questioned however But this is a right step in a forward direction anyhow. This should have been done far earlier. The blocks has been propagated fairly now. I cannot access facebook, whatsapp, linkedin, reddit (major sites, others I have not checked).

t14000 1y ago

It is great to see - all companies should comply with laws or get out of the country. Whatever the country, whatever the law, whatever the company. Never understood why "internet media" companies decided it is fine to publish without moderating. Traditional media companies know they cannot do this.

nirava 1y ago

To everyone agreeing with the decision, here's the real problem: The efforts to consolidate power, control the media, repeal stricter corruption-related laws, and allow more power and wealth to the political elite have been crazy high in the last few years in Nepal. This much has been obvious to anyone paying attention. This Social Media Ban is a pretty clear cut next logical step in that process. This could very well be a dampener, or a distraction, done in preparation for the next step. So, in theory, in the hands of a reliable government, I'd be totally for a ban. I don't want any "mainstream" social media to be above the local laws. But as it is, this is scary and will probably be looked at as an important event in history.

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bslaq 1y ago

[flagged]

Imustaskforhelp 1y ago
I didn't expect to see a ragebaiter in hackernews... If you don't know what Nepal is, no worries but your comment adds nothing to HN & you were better off just searching nepal on google. :/ Please, lets not have such comments on Hackernews, like ever...
- bslaq 1y ago
  [flagged]
- h4ch1 1y ago
  New account whose account history is basically geared towards making bait-y comments, ex: acting like they don't even know what an HDD is. Very sad people feel the need to come on a platform like hackernews to let off steam.
  - Imustaskforhelp 1y ago
    man, the only thing that I can think of this guy is, The less I know the better.... Also I read through your comment history and you seem to refer to keystatic and zola, although I knew about zola, keystatic caught me off guard and man it was something that I exactly wanted but didn't knew how... I once vibe-coded something similar which sucks because someone mentioned and I was curious. I will definitely try out keystatic with astro templates or maybe zola too. Thanks a lot tbh (I hope that this doesn't count as straying away from the original post but just wanted to say thanks, nowadays I feel like its underrated idk, anyways thanks once again lol)
    - h4ch1 1y ago
      No worries :) I am glad it's of some use to you. Always gratifying to help someone indirectly like so. Good luck, have fun!

boxed 1y ago

https://kathmandupost.com/national/2025/09/04/nepal-bans-facebook-and-other-major-social-media-platforms-over-non-compliance https://kathmandupost.com/national/2025/09/04/nepal-bans-fac... is imo a better source for this.

LaundroMat 1y ago
Choice quote from the opposition in the article you linked to: "If social media is shut down, the country will become chaotic."
- boxed 1y ago
  It's quite funny when you get pushback from maoists that you're being too extreme when attacking freedoms.

eeasss 1y ago

Great!

guerrilla 1y ago
Why?
- rwmj 1y ago
  Because their algorithms designed to push content that improves "engagement" are poisonous?
  - philipallstar 1y ago
    This is like blaming poppy seeds for heroin addiction.
    - guerrilla 1y ago
      No it's not. It's like blaming heroin dealers for heroin addiction. Nobody blames the algorithms; they blame the people who made the algorithms.
  - 4gotunameagain 1y ago
    And US propaganda.
    - Cthulhu_ 1y ago
      And Russian, and your local political whatsits.

fzeindl 1y ago

Apart from the reasons for this block: Why do these decisions always have to be black and white. I believe it would benefit mental health if Facebook was blocked one day per week so people are forced to live a day without it. Same with combustion vehicles and the climate: block cars in cities a couple of days per week, individually selected per person.

DaveZale 1y ago
I have personally seen a couple family members go more than a little nuts on fb, and I've been stalked there. It is poison for some. Reminescent of cigarette smoking a few decades ago. "Everyone" was smoking so it was okay. Now they walk around with portable oxygen generators. If they can still walk. Repulsive addictive product.
- thrance 1y ago
  I hadn't thought of the comparison to tobacco yet, but it's great. I wonder if social media will follow a similar trajectory, of going from the cool thing everyone picks up to a lame addicting health-destroyer. Thankfully, it's way easier to quit Facebook than smoking.
  - coldpie 1y ago
    The comparison of social media to tobacco is almost too perfect. It feels good while you're doing it and can be an effective social tool, but leaves you feeling like shit when you stop and has disastrous long-term health consequences.
    - triceratops 1y ago
      > The comparison of social media to tobacco is almost too perfect What do smokers reach for when they wake up? Their cigs. What about everyone else? Phones.
      - DaveZale 1y ago

yorwba 1y ago

I wonder whether the companies that didn't register chose this intentionally because they object to the legal requirements, or whether they simply didn't have anyone in charge of compliance with Nepali law and were unaware this would happen. That they don't appear to have statements ready maybe indicates the latter?

ktosobcy 1y ago

EU should to the same (FB & X). In general anything that has "algorytmic content ordering" that pushes content triggering strong emotional reactions should be banned and burned to the ground.

tomp 1y ago
Why would "algorithmic" outrage-porn content (X, Meta) be any worse than human-ordered outrage-porn content (news websites)?
- ktosobcy 1y ago
  News websites are regulated…
  - socalgal2 1y ago
    they are? As far as I can tell they are no more regulated than anyone else. There in the issue that a news site generally has limited number of contributors where has a social media site has an infinite number of contributors. In either case, it seems like the same laws apply like defamation laws, fraud laws, etc apply to the authors of the posts which might be easier to target when it’s a news site as the site itself takes responsibility for the content
    - ktosobcy 1y ago
      Yes, they are (not sure about US). In general the mere fact that there is limited number of contributors that are known and indicated authorship goes a long way. Also - all publishers have to register indicating who is behind particular "medium". Contrary, social-"media" there is no accountability. Anyone can publish anything and there is basically no information who published that. You can sue but then again publishing platform has no information about the author so the process is long and convoluted. Making social-media what it started from (network of close friends) where you only see the content they publish and requirement of actual details who is behind the particular profile (could be for pages/profiles with more than something like 10k followers, in which case - let's be honest - it's not "friend" at that point) would go a long way.

mastazi 1y ago

> Companies were given a deadline of Wednesday to register with the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology and provide a local contact, grievance handler and person responsible for self-regulation – or face shutdown. Maybe I'm missing something but it seems the requirements were pretty reasonable? I wonder why the affected companies decided to ignore them.

SilverElfin 1y ago
It’s not reasonable although it can link like it. Brazil demanded the same thing, and then ended up jailing local representatives (even lawyers) and was forcing the company agreed to implement the government’s censorship. Even though it violated their constitution to demand such censorship. Ultimately these policies are just anti free speech and are an indicator of authoritarianism.
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thomassmith65 1y ago
The can't be bothered. FA*NG companies care about China and the USA because that's where the money is. They resentfully pay a little attention to the EU. Nobody at these companies has time for Nepal.
dogtierstatus 1y ago
Similar requirements exist in India too.
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gman83 1y ago
I don't know Nepal's political situation, but I could imagine companies not wanting to have a potential hostage that they're directly responsible for in more authoritarian countries. Why does there have to be a contact in the country? Couldn't they have a contact outside the country?

crossroadsguy 1y ago

> Only five, including TikTok and Viber Bloody hell! Viber is alive? That was my first IM (India). Even when people had moved to WhatsApp I was sticking around as something felt less wrong on Viber (I can't recall now). But then I anyway had to move to WhatsApp. I have really not heard of it in a long time so I thought it would have be shutdown or something. And I don't recall it being from Japan either.

speak_plainly 1y ago

[flagged]

checker659 1y ago
You're reading into this too much my friend. Tiktok was banned for a long time just not long back. The government wants service providers to register. They're even targeting some nepali apps.
diggan 1y ago
> The fact that TikTok remains accessible is telling Telling that TikTok, a Chinese company (ooh the enemy!), happens to be better at following local laws than American companies? What you're seeing is companies based in the US flagrantly ignoring requests from the government to start following the law, and subsequently be banned for ignoring them. As has happened in many other countries before that.

dahsameer 1y ago

I'm from Nepal. The bans are implemented in a pretty straightforward way: ISPs simply don't resolve DNS queries for these services. switch your DNS, and you're good to go. There are 26 apps that were banned: Facebook, Facebook Messenger, Instagram, YouTube, WhatsApp, Twitter, LinkedIn, Snapchat, Reddit, Discord, Pinterest, Signal, Threads, WeChat, Quora, Tumblr, Clubhouse, Mastodon, MeWe, Rumble, VK, Line, IMO, Zalo, Soul, and Hamro Patro.

lighttower 1y ago
TikTok is still allowed? Isn't it the most damaging?
- bee_rider 1y ago
  I think it less like: governments see social media sites as damaging, so they ban them. It is more like: a lot of people see social media sites as damaging, so they don’t particularly care when their governments ban them for whatever arbitrary reasons the governments come up with. So, I’d expect the more that social media sites come back online to reflect their responsiveness to dealing with government demands, not the damaging-ness.
- lawlessone 1y ago
  >Isn't it the most damaging? Depends on who you ask. I'd consider it damaging but nowhere near as damaging as X in recent times. And would consider FB worse that both for sheer the hysteria it generates in the old.
- noselasd 1y ago
  TikTok complied with their regulation last year. The regulations basically requires social media platforms with > 1 million nepalese accounts to get a license to operate in Nepal. The bill and requirments doesn't seem unreasonable, atleast according to https://www.lawgandhi.com/social-media-bill-2081-2025/ https://www.lawgandhi.com/social-media-bill-2081-2025/
ivape 1y ago
What’s the justification? Only a state religion could provide the societal justification. I don’t know, I’m recently living under Trump, so a failed authoritarian state is very new to me. Can anyone explain how normalized and day-to-day news like this is over there? For example, we really don’t know what to do with news like this here, most of us just go on with our lives.

gsky 1y ago

Good move. Hope all countries do block these apps. Whenever i open YouTube in private tab all default recommendations are garbage. vulgar and sexist videos. its worse than garbage. Just imagine how many teens lives are ruined

haakon 1y ago
You can block YouTube for yourself on your own, it's not difficult. You don't have to depend on the state to do it for you.
- gsky 1y ago
  I use third party apps. My cry was for non tech people
karmakaze 1y ago
That's odd. I get an empty page that has text "Try searching to get started."
- Taek 1y ago
  That's because you have history turned off. YouTube did this really weird thing where they refuse to give you algorithmic recommendations if you have history off, which includes refusing to let you watch more than a handful of shorts at a time. As someone who has been addicted to the youtube feed for a long time, it was really refreshing to have a button that basically meant I could only watch videos I knew to search for. I think they are trying really hard to pressure you into turning history back on, but I'm much happier as a person now that I'm not having videos and clickbait rammed down my throat.
  - rpdillon 1y ago
    In a private window, there is no account to check for "History is turned off". I don't think the root comment is accurate: at least in the US, I see an empty page when I visit YT in a private window.

nonethewiser 1y ago

Nepal's requirements don't seem very different than the EU. The main difference is simply that Nepal is small so the companies dont care. Social media companies must have a local contact person, office, and comply with the Directive for Regulation of Social Media Use, 2080. That law requires social media companies to remove content deemed illegal.

krunck 1y ago

In light of this I think countries are right to be wary of American media: https://theintercept.com/2025/08/25/pentagon-military-ai-propaganda-influence/ https://theintercept.com/2025/08/25/pentagon-military-ai-pro... https://archive.is/1IElr https://archive.is/1IElr

krunck 1y ago
Judging by the down votes I guess the US military has this system up and running. </sarc>

udave 1y ago

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