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> Companies were given a deadline of Wednesday to register with the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology and provide a local contact, grievance

> 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
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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?
- aucisson_masque 1y ago
  how to you prosecute a company that isn't represented in your country ? and how do you get someone, I mean a person, in front of court ? As far as I know, Nepal can't send its police to America to arrest Facebook CEO and bring him back. Let's just pretend for a second: Meta deliberately allows pedophiles to organize themselves and abduct Nepalese kids. Nepal government can only publicly object, eventually block Facebook access and that's all ? Nepalese wouldn't be very happy about that. I am surprised there are even countries where these big corporations don't already have legal representation. It's not like it's expensive compared to what they earn from Nepalese.
- MangoToupe 1y ago
  How else can these companies be compelled to follow local laws?
- boringg 1y ago
  I would have to imagine that Nepal wants to protect its population from getting too much content from India - they would easily be overrun.
- rmccue 1y ago
  This tends to be the case for these sorts of regulations, so that if necessary they have a representative who can be pulled into court to answer for violations. For example, the GDPR requires an authorised European representative.
- diggan 1y ago
  > Why does there have to be a contact in the country? Couldn't they have a contact outside the country? How would that work? They obviously want someone to be inside the country, having to follow the country's laws, in case the companies decide (again) to break the laws. If the companies don't want to have people on the ground that are liable to the law and regulations of said country, then stop offering services there.
  - Ukv 1y ago
    If it's just meant to be a contact point/grievance handler, I don't see much issue with them being in another country. If they're meant to be "held accountable" as leverage to ensure the company's compliance ("delete this politically inconvenient content worldwide or your local employees will never see their families again"), then it seems fairly understandable why social media sites would be reluctant to give that leverage - particularly for cases like this where the bill in question seems fairly restrictive (including imprisonment for using an anonymous identity). > If the companies don't want to have people on the ground that are liable to the law and regulations of said country, then stop offering services there. If I want to run a Mastodon instance (which is blocked by this), do I need to hire an employee/representative for every country in the world? I'd rather just keep the maximum leverage most countries have as being to block the site if they don't like it.
ath3nd 1y ago
I would love Signal to register a representative, the rest of the companies listed can go die in a hole as far as I am concerned. Maybe Youtube also, but nah, Google is almost as much a candidate for dying in a hole as Meta. Good riddance.
eviks 1y ago
Censors always use something superficially "reasonable", and another part you're missing: there is no way anyone reasonable would do the ban for such trivial infractions if these demands were all there is to that. The affected don't care enough about the market to submit to the demands so soon?
- nonethewiser 1y ago
  I assume you feel the same about EU's regulations. That's the interesting thing to me. They seem quite similar fundamentally but there are a couple key differences in the dynamic. 1) Nepal is a small country so these large companies just dont have to care so much 2) People on Hackernews probably have a higher opinion of the EU's governance But fundamentally, the laws themself seem extremely similar.
  - naravara 1y ago
    This tends to happen a lot with news of regulatory policies in the global south where Western commentators will hold them to standards of libertinism that don’t even really apply in their own countries. It’s some combination of ignorance about what the regulatory environment actually is at home and a certain condescending assumption that OUR regulators are fair minded and competent but THEIR regulators must all be corrupt incompetents with an authoritarian streak.
nonethewiser 1y ago
They are pretty much the same as other content moderation around the world. There is some government body that determines their own content moderation policy then requires companies to implement it. Same as the EU, Brazil, etc. I think a lot of westerners trust the EU government to use better judgement, and maybe they are even correct, but the fundamentals of the law are pretty much the same. The biggest difference is these large companies dont really care that much about business in Nepal.

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?

aucisson_masque 1y ago
how to you prosecute a company that isn't represented in your country ? and how do you get someone, I mean a person, in front of court ? As far as I know, Nepal can't send its police to America to arrest Facebook CEO and bring him back. Let's just pretend for a second: Meta deliberately allows pedophiles to organize themselves and abduct Nepalese kids. Nepal government can only publicly object, eventually block Facebook access and that's all ? Nepalese wouldn't be very happy about that. I am surprised there are even countries where these big corporations don't already have legal representation. It's not like it's expensive compared to what they earn from Nepalese.
MangoToupe 1y ago
How else can these companies be compelled to follow local laws?
boringg 1y ago
I would have to imagine that Nepal wants to protect its population from getting too much content from India - they would easily be overrun.
rmccue 1y ago
This tends to be the case for these sorts of regulations, so that if necessary they have a representative who can be pulled into court to answer for violations. For example, the GDPR requires an authorised European representative.
diggan 1y ago
> Why does there have to be a contact in the country? Couldn't they have a contact outside the country? How would that work? They obviously want someone to be inside the country, having to follow the country's laws, in case the companies decide (again) to break the laws. If the companies don't want to have people on the ground that are liable to the law and regulations of said country, then stop offering services there.
- Ukv 1y ago
  If it's just meant to be a contact point/grievance handler, I don't see much issue with them being in another country. If they're meant to be "held accountable" as leverage to ensure the company's compliance ("delete this politically inconvenient content worldwide or your local employees will never see their families again"), then it seems fairly understandable why social media sites would be reluctant to give that leverage - particularly for cases like this where the bill in question seems fairly restrictive (including imprisonment for using an anonymous identity). > If the companies don't want to have people on the ground that are liable to the law and regulations of said country, then stop offering services there. If I want to run a Mastodon instance (which is blocked by this), do I need to hire an employee/representative for every country in the world? I'd rather just keep the maximum leverage most countries have as being to block the site if they don't like it.

ath3nd 1y ago

I would love Signal to register a representative, the rest of the companies listed can go die in a hole as far as I am concerned. Maybe Youtube also, but nah, Google is almost as much a candidate for dying in a hole as Meta. Good riddance.

eviks 1y ago

Censors always use something superficially "reasonable", and another part you're missing: there is no way anyone reasonable would do the ban for such trivial infractions if these demands were all there is to that. The affected don't care enough about the market to submit to the demands so soon?

nonethewiser 1y ago
I assume you feel the same about EU's regulations. That's the interesting thing to me. They seem quite similar fundamentally but there are a couple key differences in the dynamic. 1) Nepal is a small country so these large companies just dont have to care so much 2) People on Hackernews probably have a higher opinion of the EU's governance But fundamentally, the laws themself seem extremely similar.
- naravara 1y ago
  This tends to happen a lot with news of regulatory policies in the global south where Western commentators will hold them to standards of libertinism that don’t even really apply in their own countries. It’s some combination of ignorance about what the regulatory environment actually is at home and a certain condescending assumption that OUR regulators are fair minded and competent but THEIR regulators must all be corrupt incompetents with an authoritarian streak.

nonethewiser 1y ago

They are pretty much the same as other content moderation around the world. There is some government body that determines their own content moderation policy then requires companies to implement it. Same as the EU, Brazil, etc. I think a lot of westerners trust the EU government to use better judgement, and maybe they are even correct, but the fundamentals of the law are pretty much the same. The biggest difference is these large companies dont really care that much about business in Nepal.