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14 Killed in anti-government protests in Nepal

568 points by whatsupdog 1y ago

deleted 1y ago
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netsharc 1y ago
So where's the donkey and where's the cart. It reads like: citizens have been protesting the government using social media, government desperate to curb dissent bans social media, dissent is now on the streets.. Or maybe it's as straightforward as the media has been reporting.
- paganel 1y ago
  It shows that the Nepalese have a higher civic response compared to many in the West, just look at the Brits, where in effect there is a social media ban on lots and lots of things that affect day-to-day life.
  - FirmwareBurner 1y ago
    Because people in the West have been indoctrinated to trust their governments far too much to an unhealthy degree to actually think that maybe their government doesn't have their best interest at heart and to start protesting. And also because they're in the trap of a government provided cushy lifestyle which the government can terminate at will without violence (de-banking, de-pensioning, de-uneployment, de-social housing, etc) if they're caught protesting. People in underdeveloped countries don't have anything more to loose anyway but their chains.
    - myrmidon 1y ago
      > Because people in the West have been indoctrinated to trust their governments far too much to an unhealthy degree Can you give specific examples? I frequently find the US outlook to be exactly the reverse, where people pretend like "the government" is some conspiratorial shadow organisation undermining all the citizens at every step (which seems quite silly to me because it basically consists only of people that you directly or indirectly voted for). My view is that if you have incompetent, selfish administrators in a western democracy, then just don't vote for them next time; if they keep getting elected, then maybe your countries actual problem are the idiot voters instead (or possibly not-actually-independent mass media, the importance of which can not be overstated).
      - deleted 1y ago
        [deleted]
      - FirmwareBurner 1y ago
        >Can you give specific examples? Most rich western/northern European countries. >which seems quite silly to me because it basically consists only of people that you directly or indirectly voted for It's not silly when you consider that the candidates you can vote for, are all managed oppositions, each owned and supported by various mega-money interest groups. Why else did Bernie Sanders never got nominated as a presidential candidate even though many people supported him? Because he's not bought and paid for by the lobbyist groups. In every country it's like that.
        glhaynes 1y ago
        Why else did Bernie Sanders never got nominated as a presidential candidate even though many people supported him? Because more people supported someone else.
        salawat 1y ago
        Wrong. Democratic super delegates overrode the nomination in favor of someone more friendly to the true pro-business party line.
        glhaynes 1y ago
        Democratic super delegates overrode the nomination This literally didn't happen. This sort of conspiracy-theorizing nonsense is akin to Trump's about the 2020 election and has lead to a bunch of low-info voters making bad decisions.
        myrmidon 1y ago
        I'm not disputing that there is gonna be some degree of plutocracy when political funding is uncontrolled and media presence can be bought for cheap. But I think "managed opposition is the best you can get as voter" is incorrect; Trump is in my view neither managed nor "pro-establishment" in any way, and if everything was actually under "capitalist" control, then people like Sanders, Ocasio-Cortez or Tim Walz would never be allowed even close to a position of power. Anti-establishment populists in Europe have seen comparable success (e.g. Italy where they are in power, or Germany where it just looks like a matter of time).
    - koonsolo 1y ago
      Hey, Belgian here. Our government cannot just de-bank, de-pension or de- anything else you are suggesting, and definitely not by the "crime" of protesting (what a ridiculous statement!) We protest here too by the way, this weekend about 100k in Brussels. That you make these claims is just plain up ridiculous.
      - FirmwareBurner 1y ago
        Are you aware that the world(and Europe for that matter) is much larger than Belgium, with way different laws on what the state can do to you? For example in Canada they de-banked the truckers, in Germany they de-pensioned a retiree who was planning to bring back the Kaiser. So yeah, it happens, you're just ignorant from your bubble.
        koonsolo 1y ago
        You were talking about "people in the West". Belgians are people in the west, and we don't comply to your statements. Secondly, I don't believe a word you say about Germany. Source please. Don't generalize what happened once in Canada to the whole "Western world" and all kinds of de-.... And as far as I remember, those truckers were protesting. So they certainly didn't comply to your description of being indoctrinated to trust their government.
    - rkomorn 1y ago
      News to me that the French, for example, trust their government and do not protest.
      - FirmwareBurner 1y ago
        Trust is orthogonal to protests. Frech protest when the government takes away their gibs, not because it's spying on them.
  - jama211 1y ago
    Let’s not pretend the level of ban is equivalent, or the effect it has on people’s lives. More should be done, but there are levels of severity. UK citizens can and do still log on to many services daily that are not accessible in Nepal.
    - paganel 1y ago
      Of course they log in, I never said otherwise, but only if they want to write about stuff that is pretty much inconsequential to their lives, such as sports or celebrity culture.
      - jama211 1y ago
        Also not true? UK Facebook is constant political commentary lol.
  - ta1243 1y ago
    The only ban on media I've seen is from Farage, who's banned the media from covering local government where he has the power https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/reform-media-ban-nottinghamshire-live-farage-free-speech-b2817293.html https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/reform-media-... Trump has a similar playbook. https://apnews.com/article/trump-ap-white-house-press-pool-ban-cdf091900ae5371329234ddfafef3a91 https://apnews.com/article/trump-ap-white-house-press-pool-b... Then there's also the normal US style limits (fighting words are banned, speech which harms big companies is banned, "obscenity" is restricted or banned, death threats to the president are banned (the UK also bans threats to people who aren't the president)
    - gadders 1y ago
      >>the UK also bans threats to people who aren't the president It also bans non-specific jokey threats and arrests you with five armed police officers.
- MangoToupe 1y ago
  It also seems reasonable that companies have to follow local laws to operate there. Corporations superseding states seems just as dystopian as state repression of dissent. Granted, there is either confusion or misrepresentation as Mastodon is also banned. The reporting seems pretty meagre; even strictly with these events, how are so many dying from batons and rubber bullets? Sure these can kill, but fourteen people?
  - netsharc 1y ago
    It's awkward isn't it, because following local laws could mean being a helping hand of the oppressor... For an extreme example, an email company that is forced by a new law to reveal all emails of citizens of country X, or a payment app that has to upload all transactions to the government (and where the supreme court has ruled in favour of the surveillance state). The "moral" company would probably rather shut their operations, but even trillion-dollar companies relent... And who has the last word on what's moral?
    - monkeyelite 1y ago
      > And who has the last word on what's moral? The standard assumption in business is that you follow local laws and customs as they are a proxy for the moral system of the local people. Are you operating a business or promoting western ideas?
      - graemep 1y ago
        Freedom is a western idea? Justice is a western idea?
        monkeyelite 1y ago
        If you’re suggesting you have distilled humanity to the essential rights and values that are obviously true and transcend culture. Yes that’s a western value.
        1y ago
- seer 1y ago
  Just a random tourist caught up in all of this in Nepal right now, but what I gathered was that corruption and anti-government sentiment was the reason, but the social networks ban tipped people over the edge to start protesting.
  - mothballed 1y ago
    Nepal government made the classic mistake of not realizing if you let people scream into the ether on whatever the youth use as twitter, they won't meet up with their friends to scream on the street or even worse.
    - cindyllm 1y ago
      [dead]
    - BoxFour 1y ago
      Social media has proven to be quite an effective tool for mobilizing protests and beyond. I get how the short-sighted might see it as a tactical move to "cripple logistics" by banning social media. But, the reason I call it short-sighted is exactly what you said: Removing those earlier pressure-release valves doesn’t solve the underlying issue at all and just increases the risk of a more volatile outcome.
      - JumpCrisscross 1y ago
        > Social media has proven to be quite an effective tool for mobilizing protests Gatherings, yes. Effective protest, I’m less convinced. Effective protests “have clear strategic goals, use protest to broaden coalitions, seek to enlist more powerful individuals in their cause, and connect expressions of discontent to broader political and electoral mobilization” [1]. Social media helps enlist the elite. But it absolutely trashes clarity of goals and coalition broadening, often degrading into no true Scotsman contests. If a protest is well planned, social media can help it organize. But if a movement is developing, social media will as often keep it in a leaderless, undisciplined and thus ineffective state. [1] https://www.brookings.edu/articles/the-power-of-protest-in-the-us/ https://www.brookings.edu/articles/the-power-of-protest-in-t...
ktallett 1y ago
These governments that block social media or control/monitor the internet to avoid critics of government or dissent, whether that be Nepal, Tunisia, Turkey, UK, Germany, China, Egypt, US, Russia, Israel, are always shocked when there is an uprising. Unsurprisingly when a government tries to control people this closely many will see the flaws in it and make a stand and rightly so whether that be digitally or in person. It's understandable why so many tech knowledgeable dissidents create or use apps that bypass ridiculous laws.
- jay-barronville 1y ago
  > These governments that block social media or control/monitor the internet to avoid critics of government or dissent, whether that be Nepal, Tunisia, Turkey, UK, Germany, China, Egypt, US, Russia, Israel, are always shocked when there is an uprising. I beg to differ. I don’t think that any of these governments are shocked that the people eventually fight back. I think that they simply make the mistake of underestimating the power of the people (especially when united) and severely overestimating their ability to suppress the people and their dissent. That’s how tyranny works. That said, freedom of speech is always worth fighting for! Once you lose your right to speak freely, it’s only a matter of time before you start to lose everything else.
- Fricken 1y ago
  [flagged]
  - blitzar 1y ago
    but look at those engagement numbers tho, numbers the like of which may never be seen again. sacrifices were made - people put in long nights working, missed their childrens birthdays, anniversaries etc. years of A/B testing and tweaks to the algorithm went into fermenting that genocide. facebook engineers really earned their pizza party that week.
    - christabsmith 1y ago
      [dead]
perihelions 1y ago
Hard-earned freedoms are wasted on societies who don't have memories of what it took to earn them. Freedom is a ratchet: slides easily and frictionlessly one way, and offers immense resistance in the other. This is all so disheartening.
- jay-barronville 1y ago
  Hard agree. I’m always trying to get my fellow young Americans to understand this and it seems to go right over their heads a lot of times. My parents lived through multiple oppressive dictatorships before emigrating to America. Once I understood everything that they and their families experienced (e.g., family members being kidnapped, disappeared, and eventually murdered simply due their political views), I gained a much deeper appreciation for our Constitution (in particular, our Bill of Rights). Nowadays, watching how easy it is to get folks to give in to censorship and tyranny for psychological “safety” scares me sometimes (especially when it’s all due to politics). No matter what someone’s views are (and how offensive I may find them to be), I’ll never ever advocate for their censorship, because I understand where that can lead. Today, it’s your opponent; tomorrow, it’s you.
  - whimsicalism 1y ago
    liberalism is passé nowadays, but it will see a resurgence akin to the “hard times make hard people, hard people make good times” cycle
  - SamoyedFurFluff 1y ago
    I actually don’t know if I agree with the last part. A chunk of the Rwandan genocide was a radio station instigating and advocating for the mass slaughter of a people. Atrocities in Myanmar also were originally advocated for in Facebook. On more personal levels, domestic abuse is also psychological torture and the wearing down of a person with words and it should be in someone’s right to file a restraining order to stop being contacted by their abuser even if the abuser doesn’t perform physical violence. That is to say I broadly agree with the notion that speech should be relatively unfettered, but I do believe there must be exceptions for speech that actively aims to fetter people. We must limit speech that advocates limiting the freedoms of people to live as independent and equal citizens.
lionturtle 1y ago
It was absolutely not just social media ban, it was mostly youth protesting against the corrupt government and unfairness, social media ban was one element that was against the freedom of speech, but it was right around the time where everyone was documenting the rich politicians, their business connections and their families that have been living lavishly and just inheriting the election seats from generation to generation and spinning beurocracy to their sides. I was there a few hours ago. It was a class struggle, but it was bound to be spun up as "kids don't get facebook and throw tantrum".
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
- bhickey 1y ago
  The corruption is simply incredible. About fifteen years ago I found myself in Kathmandu after getting altitude sickness. The team's fixer brought me to lunch with some government officials. The topic of discussion? How to steal from a hydroelectric project. One of his guests outright asked, "should we be talking about this in front of this guy?" The fixer shrugged it off saying "he's a Westerner, what is he going to do about it?" And, well, he was right. It wasn't like I could go report it to the police. Years later the fixer was finally jailed for gold smuggling. https://english.khabarhub.com/2022/16/232667/ https://english.khabarhub.com/2022/16/232667/ Edit: add link
  - robertlagrant 1y ago
    Just went to look you up on your profile to see why you might be hanging out with government officials, and just fyi your website link seems gone.
    - mothballed 1y ago
      It's not terribly unusual to end up with random government officials if you're a white guy going into a non-touristy part of the 3rd world. I went to a village in Paraguay, first thing locals did was take me to some government project creating an industrial cow milking operation where I was promptly offered an engineering job. Low-level 3rd world officials love showing off whatever they're doing to whoever will listen. They usually don't have much else to do. It is best to accept their offer and drink the tea with them or whatever, get on their good side and talk about how modern their little village is, and get on their good graces.
mcny 1y ago
What's missing in this discussion is the infiltration by agitating forces trying to muddy the waters. There are the regressive forces trying to bring back the monarchy which can't be good for anyone. No kings.
- checker659 1y ago
  Kids died today. Not jholays.
  - JKCalhoun 1y ago
    Had to "phone a friend" on that one: "In Nepal, “jhola” (bag) turned into “jholay” is slang. It usually refers to people—often students, activists, or intellectual types—who carry a cloth bag (jhola) and are associated with being overly “bookish,” pseudo-intellectual, leftist, or idealistic. Depending on tone, it can be affectionate, neutral, or dismissive (like calling someone a “hippie” or “armchair intellectual” in English)." EDIT: sounds like "my friend" is hallucinating. Thanks, actual people for helping me understand jholay. It seemed lazy though to simply ask in the comments, "What's jholay?"
    - mcny 1y ago
      My understanding is a jholey is a sycophant who does not have their own political principles but are "carrying the bag" for someone else. Closer to paid thugs than idealistic activists. Might want to consider a different phone a friend.
    - amulyabaral 1y ago
      Nepali here. In this context, a jholey is a party foot soldier. An unquestioning party worker who would literally carry their leader's bag, follow them everywhere, and do any menial task in hopes of gaining political favor.
pwndByDeath 1y ago
I wish my government would ban those attention traps too... Or perhaps less hyperbolicly, I wish people wouldn't use those platforms for their valuable free speech, and perhaps save their words for only the most valuable of utterances. But then they would all be here on HN. ;)
- CommenterPerson 1y ago
  A ban would be a terrible idea. Some appropriate regulation and breaking up of monopolies might improve the situation. It's heartening to see the EU initiatives.
asib 1y ago
> The demonstration turned violent when some protesters entered the Parliament complex, prompting police to resort to baton charges, tear gas shells and rubber bullets to disperse the crowd, eyewitnesses said. 14 people dead from so-called "non-lethal" means. How do 14 people end up dead without the police coming with intent to do harm?
- bjackman 1y ago
  Also note the phrasing. The content is "the police killed 14 people". But the form is "the situation turned violent as a result of the protester's actions".
  - ddtaylor 1y ago
    "See what you made me do" is a common phrase in domestic abuse.
    - whamlastxmas 1y ago
      It’s also irrefutable fact that pro-state or pro-cop agitators throughout history will pretend to be a demonstrator and throw a single brick to give the cops an excuse to break some skulls
      - martin-t 1y ago
        In primitive societies where people are expected to resolve their own problems because everyone is roughly equal, violence is the principal currency, for better or worse. But in "civilized" societies with multiple layers of power structures, you are not supposed to solve your own problem, you are supposed to show somebody in a position of power that you are the victim so they solve the problem for you. This means victimhood is the principal currency of power. Don't believe me? Every governments which allows protests says they must always be peaceful and "violence doesn't belong in politics". Yet how many of those governments were created by violent armed revolt against a previous authoritarian government? How many by "peaceful" protests?
estebarb 1y ago
I'm afraid that website was hacked. It only redirects me to fraudulent raffles and casino stuff such as https://cdn.aucey.com/sweeps-survey/1034/es.html https://cdn.aucey.com/sweeps-survey/1034/es.html
- didntcheck 1y ago
  Same experience here. Their ads repeatedly hijack the tab Try this instead https://archive.is/zv17z https://archive.is/zv17z . Not perfect, but the text can still be read behind the popover
- trashburger 1y ago
  Check your browser/OS, works fine here.
  - Pikamander2 1y ago
    Rogue browser extensions are very rare these days. When people get redirected to malicious sites, it's almost always either due to the site having an infected WordPress installation or using a sketchy ad network.
    - nobody9999 1y ago
      >When people get redirected to malicious sites, it's almost always either due to the site having an infected WordPress installation or using a sketchy ad network. That's often true. However, in this case when visiting the linked page[0] I am able to connect and view the article without issue. Some details: Location: USA Browser: Firefox 128.14.0esr Ublock Origin running with mostly default settings Perhaps there's a location blocking issue and/or malware that targets certain locations/browser types? [0] https://www.tribuneindia.com/news/world/massive-protests-in-nepal-over-social-media-ban/ https://www.tribuneindia.com/news/world/massive-protests-in-...
Aeolun 1y ago
They need the military to deal with the teenagers? I guess if all you have is a hammer…
- seydor 1y ago
  Kinda like what the US does
  - throwawayq3423 1y ago
    The U.S. sends its military to kill teenagers?
christabsmith 1y ago
[dead]
beardyw 1y ago
> The prime minister said the party is not against social media, “but what cannot be accepted is those doing business in Nepal, making money, and yet not complying with the law”. I accept that there is corruption and manipulation by the government, but experience tells us also that these companies may be avoiding taxes towards zero.
- alephnerd 1y ago
  They have all registered with Nepal's revenue office and are paying VAT [0] The issue is the government in Nepal wants every social media holding company to have a designated person in Nepal who they can directly communicate with for takedowns without going through the traditional process, and if the company does not flllow through, hold that person legally liable. It's a blatant censorship ploy because protests and dissatisfaction against the KP Sharma Oli, Sher Bahadur Deuba, and Prachanda musical chairs along with various constant corruption scandals are pushing Nepalis to ask for an alternative. [0] - https://ekantipur.com/business/2025/01/28/en/from-google-meta-paying-them-in-nepal-due-to-41-crore-58-06.html https://ekantipur.com/business/2025/01/28/en/from-google-met...
  - wtcactus 1y ago
    So, very similar to what happened with X in Brazil.
  - baggachipz 1y ago
    Ah, so they did the right thing for the (very) wrong reasons. Shame.
  - whimsicalism 1y ago
    i’m pretty sure that’s a standard requirement.. or at least extremely similar to how Brazil does it and i think similar for lots of EU countries
    - alephnerd 1y ago
      The difference is, you can trust an EU country isn't filing a claim to put down a color revolution or that you can appeal via the judiciary. A hybrid regime like Nepal is not like that.
jacknews 1y ago
Today is UNESCO's International Literacy Day, and this year's theme is digital literacy. Quite ironic to choose this day to start trying to make an entire nation digitally illiterate.
- newyankee 1y ago
  Might be the wrong reasons, but highly skewed and externally controlled social media do not necessarily mean bastions of free speech, they have shown that powerful group with right incentives and structures can capture and influence perception. Everyone has biases and social media will reinforce or amplify them if an external adversary uses in a targeted way. Also while free speech and protests are important, the nature of protests or certain elements fuelling fire in the resentment can lead to these becoming completely out of control and destroying property or harming passersby. Sometimes pure anarchy is the goal of routine rabble rousers who use this opportunity. So I will go out on a limb over here and say no one over here really knows what happened in the sequence of decision making by the police and there may be some instances where certain actions may have been justified to avoid further escalation.
  - jacknews 1y ago
    education education education
Tom_987 1y ago
[dead]
happyweasel 1y ago
Oh, let me guess... The protests were organized by groups that get their funding from the NED or other Western sponsored NGOs ? (Asking for a friend)
- JumpCrisscross 1y ago
  No evidence of any of that. I don’t see how it’s incredible to believe students will flip out if you ban social media. (Though the meme of all protests and civil discontent in Asia being the product of Western influence is a popular one among right-wing circles.)
  - zahlman 1y ago
    > the meme of all protests and civil discontent in Asia being the product of Western influence is a popular one among right-wing circles I listen to enough "right-wing circles" to end up getting people tarnishing me as one just for standing up for them (despite all kinds of progressive views) and I frankly don't know what you're talking about. My friends that tend to get interpreted as "right-coded" have historically been supportive of protest movements in Taiwan and Hong Kong.
    - JumpCrisscross 1y ago
      In Asia.
n3storm 1y ago
Negatives here we come: How can this post get to HN front-page and not any USAn turmoil, Gaza or Argentina libertarian downfall news?
- JumpCrisscross 1y ago
  This is novel. I didn’t know this was happening and am learning a lot from informed comments. That…doesn’t tend to describe those other topics’ discourse.
- cbHXBY1D 1y ago
  I think it is a fair question: why is this allowed to stay on the front page while the deaths of people in Gaza is not? Israel just killed a bunch of journalists for organizations like the Associated Press in a double tap strike on a hospital and we're not allowed to discuss it?
objektif 1y ago
I hope beautiful people of Nepal finally take down the corrupt scum that has been holding their country back for generations.
maxlin 1y ago
https://archive.is/zv17z https://archive.is/zv17z (reposting as a top level comment, thanks to original poster)
abijoy 1y ago
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screye 1y ago
Nepal is an interesting nation. Compared to nearby poor nations, Nepal is safe and its people are perceived to be welcoming. It's the only serious candidate for being a ski-nation in all of mainland Asia. If Nepal wanted, it could transform itself into a Bali style tourist destination and ascend towards being a middle economy. Unlike India, Pakistan and Bangladesh, which have to solve 1-billion-people scale problems, at 30 million, Nepal can resort to scaled down solutions. Nepal's refusal to leverage the (few) advantages of its geography is baffling. The internal politics are even more bizarre. As a communist-adjacent nation, it has a closed off economy with deep suspicion towards free markets. Yet, the national messaging alternates between blaming India or China for all their problems. The local populace (like every populace) eats this up. From my observations, neither nation affects Nepal's economics much. (national security is a separate conversation) > protests reflect young people's widespread frustration with government action to tackle corruption and boost economic opportunities. South Asia is coming off a recent protest->overthrow movement in Bangladesh. The youth protesters had similar complaints. Yet, the outcome was an even less democratic system which now owed favors to the violent parts of the society that helped complete the ouster. Similarly, Nepal has a history of political instability and violent ousters, most of which had led of very little economic change. The youth's complaints are valid and I support their protests. However, do the protesters have an outcome in mind ? They want an improved economy. But, will they be okay with opening Nepal up to free markets ? This may mean selling resort building contracts to major western ski companies. It may mean opening unsafe sweatshops for Adidas to make shoes there. It may mean resource exploration by foreign mining companies. I say this, because this is a South Asian disease. We want our nations to have a strong economy. But, economic liberalization can sometimes look like colonization, and this hurts the ego of proud global-south nations. We want progress, while keeping all foreign influence at bay. We want social welfare, but the nation is bankrupt. It's paradoxical. When our nations do move towards markets, it happens at gunpoint (1991) or with steep political costs (Farm Bill, GST) to the the incumbent. Not sure what the solution is here. But, the last decade has made me suspicious towards protest movements that do not have positive policy outcomes in mind. The student's anger is valid, but impressionable students are the the time-honored vanguard used by more powerful opposition to trigger coups.
- kylehotchkiss 1y ago
josfredo 1y ago
It is hard not to use social medias in this age, and the citizens have the right to fight for them, even if it resolves in their deaths. As with pouring water, the world keeps spinning, and the strife goes on.
haleem123 1y ago
Seems like a chapter out of the recent Sarah Wynn-Williams book Careless People: A Cautionary Tale of Power, Greed, and Lost Idealism Hardcover https://www.amazon.com/Careless-People-Cautionary-Power-Idealism/dp/B0DZ8KM7RR https://www.amazon.com/Careless-People-Cautionary-Power-Idea...
rpac0 1y ago
Every major global news outlet is portraying Nepal’s protest as being against a “social media ban.” That is misleading. Even most large local media houses are pushing the same narrative—which is not surprising, since many of them serve as PRs agents for political parties. A bit about Nepal—the government here is run by a bunch of old farts. They are deeply corrupt and will do anything, legal or not, to protect their positions and continue embezzling the national budget. They lack accountability because they know they can/and have gotten away with anything. Example of a recent one [1]. Their children live lavishly, flexing their designer bags and watches, while the commoners struggle working tough jobs overseas just to survive. They know that by controlling social media—as they already did with TikTok—they can censor any news about their corruption (which is a norm here) easily and keep the people in dark and in their favor. Now, they want Meta and Google to comply with their agenda and with the election coming, they need this bad! This protest was never about a “social media ban.” It was against years and years of corruption, embezzlement and censorship. It was supposed to be peaceful. But politics here is a dirty game, and these veterans are seasoned pros. They hired goons to infiltrate the peaceful crowds, cause chaos and damage public property—a very old tactic here. That is how the demonstration spiraled out of control. If you want to hear the voices of real people, look at r/Nepal and r/NepalSocial on Reddit. And ask yourself—do you really think people are ready to risk their lives just for social media? [1] https://old.reddit.com/r/NepalSocial/comments/1n9ra2q/hit_and_run_doesnt_matter_who_was_at_fault_at/ https://old.reddit.com/r/NepalSocial/comments/1n9ra2q/hit_an...
njsubedi 1y ago
The count is 19. And it's mostly students, few of who were still in their school uniform. Many head injuries, and death by bullets on the head. This is the darkest day in Nepal! Edit: And the protest was against corrupt politicians, not social media ban.
- nirava 1y ago
  The count's gone up. I didn't go to the protest but the friends that went say they're probably under-counting considering how many shots were fired right in front of them. PS fancy seeing you here!
bbminner 1y ago
In the meantime, Russia erected a copy of the great Chinese firewall with DPI and everything - blocking YouTube, foreign news, most voice chat apps, most vpn traffic, and even actively dropping ssh connections when too much bidirectional sustained traffic is being detected.
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
allfornepal 1y ago
Pretty sure this number will increase to lot more in coming days, terrible to see this state of a beautiful country.
kelvinjps10 1y ago
I remember people here in a previous thread saying that the people supported the ban, well it doesn't seem like it's the case
- nirava 1y ago
  supporters of the ban in 3 camps: - "if social media won't follow our laws, we should ban them" - "I am affiliated to this party so this is ok" - "social media bad, hence ban good" of course the deeper issue was that the social media was banned because it helped backlash against the powerful spread. and backlash mostly well-deserved because of the objectively pro-corruption anti-press anti-people laws being proposed and passed. In many ways, this protest and this massacre was probably step n and n+1 in the process rather than an accident:
deleted 1y ago
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nemo44x 1y ago
Imagine dying because you can’t post on Facebook so you rioted and vandalized government buildings.
- aavshr 1y ago
  Please make yourself aware of all the facts before posting ignorant comments like this. Children died, shot while protesting against blatant corruption and lack of accountability that's going on for decades. The social media ban was just the final straw. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/9/8/six-killed-in-nepal-amid-gen-z-protests-after-social-media-ban-all-to-know https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/9/8/six-killed-in-nepal-...
topsykreet 1y ago
https://drive.google.com/drive/mobile/folders/18lJGrc5TSlschmkjVfX1f0IwaU1f2KmxjPl6JiXFMPRa5k91QJLJnoUaZKXg-eMZsEn9Mg2X https://drive.google.com/drive/mobile/folders/18lJGrc5TSlsch... Here's the drive link from the protest, recorded on camera.
Fricken 1y ago
[flagged]
- fluoridation 1y ago
  Why are you dancing around the issue instead of answering the question? What was the point of making that comment? "Giving a history lesson" is simply bullshit. If you want to say that you're pro-censorship then just say it.
  - Fricken 1y ago
    [flagged]
    - fluoridation 1y ago
      If the price of free speech is that racists have free speech, then I'm willing to pay it.
      - Fricken 1y ago
        [flagged]
        fluoridation 1y ago
        Interesting. So do you think if Facebook hadn't existed the obvious racial tensions also wouldn't have existed?
        Fricken 1y ago
        [flagged]
        fluoridation 1y ago
        Not to the point of one group wanting to enact genocide on another, so that's completely irrelevant, and you know it. If Facebook hadn't existed, would the genocide still have happened? Since you seem to be in a deflecting mood, I'm going to answer for you: yes. If you have one group that hates another, removing a technological means of communication solves nothing.
zippo_the_zippo 1y ago
Many news articles have failed to mention that the social media ban in Nepal was a direct response to a viral "nepo-baby vs. regular youth" online campaign, which ultimately backfired. https://www.timesnownews.com/viral/why-nepo-kid-campaign-is-going-viral-amid-social-media-whatsapp-facebook-instagram-youtube-ban-protests-in-nepal-ban-article-152709602 https://www.timesnownews.com/viral/why-nepo-kid-campaign-is-... The government framed the ban as a measure against "unregistered social media" platforms. However, major companies like Facebook and YouTube have been registered and paying taxes for years. These companies did not agree to the government's overly controlling bill, which had not even been passed into law. The K.P. Oli government attempted to bypass a public vote and enforce it as a directive, threatening non-compliant apps with bans. https://www.law-democracy.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Nepal.Social-Media-Bill_2025_Eng.pdf https://www.law-democracy.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Nep...

568 points by whatsupdog 1y ago

deleted 1y ago

[deleted]

So where's the donkey and where's the cart. It reads like: citizens have been protesting the government using social media, government desperate to curb dissent bans social media, dissent is now on the streets.. Or maybe it's as straightforward as the media has been reporting.

paganel 1y ago
It shows that the Nepalese have a higher civic response compared to many in the West, just look at the Brits, where in effect there is a social media ban on lots and lots of things that affect day-to-day life.
- FirmwareBurner 1y ago
  Because people in the West have been indoctrinated to trust their governments far too much to an unhealthy degree to actually think that maybe their government doesn't have their best interest at heart and to start protesting. And also because they're in the trap of a government provided cushy lifestyle which the government can terminate at will without violence (de-banking, de-pensioning, de-uneployment, de-social housing, etc) if they're caught protesting. People in underdeveloped countries don't have anything more to loose anyway but their chains.
  - myrmidon 1y ago
    > Because people in the West have been indoctrinated to trust their governments far too much to an unhealthy degree Can you give specific examples? I frequently find the US outlook to be exactly the reverse, where people pretend like "the government" is some conspiratorial shadow organisation undermining all the citizens at every step (which seems quite silly to me because it basically consists only of people that you directly or indirectly voted for). My view is that if you have incompetent, selfish administrators in a western democracy, then just don't vote for them next time; if they keep getting elected, then maybe your countries actual problem are the idiot voters instead (or possibly not-actually-independent mass media, the importance of which can not be overstated).
    - deleted 1y ago
      [deleted]
    - FirmwareBurner 1y ago
      >Can you give specific examples? Most rich western/northern European countries. >which seems quite silly to me because it basically consists only of people that you directly or indirectly voted for It's not silly when you consider that the candidates you can vote for, are all managed oppositions, each owned and supported by various mega-money interest groups. Why else did Bernie Sanders never got nominated as a presidential candidate even though many people supported him? Because he's not bought and paid for by the lobbyist groups. In every country it's like that.
      - glhaynes 1y ago
        Why else did Bernie Sanders never got nominated as a presidential candidate even though many people supported him? Because more people supported someone else.
        salawat 1y ago
        Wrong. Democratic super delegates overrode the nomination in favor of someone more friendly to the true pro-business party line.
        glhaynes 1y ago
        Democratic super delegates overrode the nomination This literally didn't happen. This sort of conspiracy-theorizing nonsense is akin to Trump's about the 2020 election and has lead to a bunch of low-info voters making bad decisions.
      - myrmidon 1y ago
        I'm not disputing that there is gonna be some degree of plutocracy when political funding is uncontrolled and media presence can be bought for cheap. But I think "managed opposition is the best you can get as voter" is incorrect; Trump is in my view neither managed nor "pro-establishment" in any way, and if everything was actually under "capitalist" control, then people like Sanders, Ocasio-Cortez or Tim Walz would never be allowed even close to a position of power. Anti-establishment populists in Europe have seen comparable success (e.g. Italy where they are in power, or Germany where it just looks like a matter of time).
  - koonsolo 1y ago
    Hey, Belgian here. Our government cannot just de-bank, de-pension or de- anything else you are suggesting, and definitely not by the "crime" of protesting (what a ridiculous statement!) We protest here too by the way, this weekend about 100k in Brussels. That you make these claims is just plain up ridiculous.
    - FirmwareBurner 1y ago
      Are you aware that the world(and Europe for that matter) is much larger than Belgium, with way different laws on what the state can do to you? For example in Canada they de-banked the truckers, in Germany they de-pensioned a retiree who was planning to bring back the Kaiser. So yeah, it happens, you're just ignorant from your bubble.
      - koonsolo 1y ago
        You were talking about "people in the West". Belgians are people in the west, and we don't comply to your statements. Secondly, I don't believe a word you say about Germany. Source please. Don't generalize what happened once in Canada to the whole "Western world" and all kinds of de-.... And as far as I remember, those truckers were protesting. So they certainly didn't comply to your description of being indoctrinated to trust their government.
  - rkomorn 1y ago
    News to me that the French, for example, trust their government and do not protest.
    - FirmwareBurner 1y ago
      Trust is orthogonal to protests. Frech protest when the government takes away their gibs, not because it's spying on them.
- jama211 1y ago
  Let’s not pretend the level of ban is equivalent, or the effect it has on people’s lives. More should be done, but there are levels of severity. UK citizens can and do still log on to many services daily that are not accessible in Nepal.
  - paganel 1y ago
    Of course they log in, I never said otherwise, but only if they want to write about stuff that is pretty much inconsequential to their lives, such as sports or celebrity culture.
    - jama211 1y ago
      Also not true? UK Facebook is constant political commentary lol.
- ta1243 1y ago
  The only ban on media I've seen is from Farage, who's banned the media from covering local government where he has the power https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/reform-media-ban-nottinghamshire-live-farage-free-speech-b2817293.html https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/reform-media-... Trump has a similar playbook. https://apnews.com/article/trump-ap-white-house-press-pool-ban-cdf091900ae5371329234ddfafef3a91 https://apnews.com/article/trump-ap-white-house-press-pool-b... Then there's also the normal US style limits (fighting words are banned, speech which harms big companies is banned, "obscenity" is restricted or banned, death threats to the president are banned (the UK also bans threats to people who aren't the president)
  - gadders 1y ago
    >>the UK also bans threats to people who aren't the president It also bans non-specific jokey threats and arrests you with five armed police officers.
MangoToupe 1y ago
It also seems reasonable that companies have to follow local laws to operate there. Corporations superseding states seems just as dystopian as state repression of dissent. Granted, there is either confusion or misrepresentation as Mastodon is also banned. The reporting seems pretty meagre; even strictly with these events, how are so many dying from batons and rubber bullets? Sure these can kill, but fourteen people?
- netsharc 1y ago
  It's awkward isn't it, because following local laws could mean being a helping hand of the oppressor... For an extreme example, an email company that is forced by a new law to reveal all emails of citizens of country X, or a payment app that has to upload all transactions to the government (and where the supreme court has ruled in favour of the surveillance state). The "moral" company would probably rather shut their operations, but even trillion-dollar companies relent... And who has the last word on what's moral?
  - monkeyelite 1y ago
    > And who has the last word on what's moral? The standard assumption in business is that you follow local laws and customs as they are a proxy for the moral system of the local people. Are you operating a business or promoting western ideas?
    - graemep 1y ago
      Freedom is a western idea? Justice is a western idea?
      - monkeyelite 1y ago
        If you’re suggesting you have distilled humanity to the essential rights and values that are obviously true and transcend culture. Yes that’s a western value.
        1y ago
seer 1y ago
Just a random tourist caught up in all of this in Nepal right now, but what I gathered was that corruption and anti-government sentiment was the reason, but the social networks ban tipped people over the edge to start protesting.
- mothballed 1y ago
  Nepal government made the classic mistake of not realizing if you let people scream into the ether on whatever the youth use as twitter, they won't meet up with their friends to scream on the street or even worse.
  - cindyllm 1y ago
    [dead]
  - BoxFour 1y ago
    Social media has proven to be quite an effective tool for mobilizing protests and beyond. I get how the short-sighted might see it as a tactical move to "cripple logistics" by banning social media. But, the reason I call it short-sighted is exactly what you said: Removing those earlier pressure-release valves doesn’t solve the underlying issue at all and just increases the risk of a more volatile outcome.
    - JumpCrisscross 1y ago
      > Social media has proven to be quite an effective tool for mobilizing protests Gatherings, yes. Effective protest, I’m less convinced. Effective protests “have clear strategic goals, use protest to broaden coalitions, seek to enlist more powerful individuals in their cause, and connect expressions of discontent to broader political and electoral mobilization” [1]. Social media helps enlist the elite. But it absolutely trashes clarity of goals and coalition broadening, often degrading into no true Scotsman contests. If a protest is well planned, social media can help it organize. But if a movement is developing, social media will as often keep it in a leaderless, undisciplined and thus ineffective state. [1] https://www.brookings.edu/articles/the-power-of-protest-in-the-us/ https://www.brookings.edu/articles/the-power-of-protest-in-t...

ktallett 1y ago

These governments that block social media or control/monitor the internet to avoid critics of government or dissent, whether that be Nepal, Tunisia, Turkey, UK, Germany, China, Egypt, US, Russia, Israel, are always shocked when there is an uprising. Unsurprisingly when a government tries to control people this closely many will see the flaws in it and make a stand and rightly so whether that be digitally or in person. It's understandable why so many tech knowledgeable dissidents create or use apps that bypass ridiculous laws.

jay-barronville 1y ago
> These governments that block social media or control/monitor the internet to avoid critics of government or dissent, whether that be Nepal, Tunisia, Turkey, UK, Germany, China, Egypt, US, Russia, Israel, are always shocked when there is an uprising. I beg to differ. I don’t think that any of these governments are shocked that the people eventually fight back. I think that they simply make the mistake of underestimating the power of the people (especially when united) and severely overestimating their ability to suppress the people and their dissent. That’s how tyranny works. That said, freedom of speech is always worth fighting for! Once you lose your right to speak freely, it’s only a matter of time before you start to lose everything else.
Fricken 1y ago
[flagged]
- blitzar 1y ago
  but look at those engagement numbers tho, numbers the like of which may never be seen again. sacrifices were made - people put in long nights working, missed their childrens birthdays, anniversaries etc. years of A/B testing and tweaks to the algorithm went into fermenting that genocide. facebook engineers really earned their pizza party that week.
  - christabsmith 1y ago
    [dead]

perihelions 1y ago

Hard-earned freedoms are wasted on societies who don't have memories of what it took to earn them. Freedom is a ratchet: slides easily and frictionlessly one way, and offers immense resistance in the other. This is all so disheartening.

jay-barronville 1y ago
Hard agree. I’m always trying to get my fellow young Americans to understand this and it seems to go right over their heads a lot of times. My parents lived through multiple oppressive dictatorships before emigrating to America. Once I understood everything that they and their families experienced (e.g., family members being kidnapped, disappeared, and eventually murdered simply due their political views), I gained a much deeper appreciation for our Constitution (in particular, our Bill of Rights). Nowadays, watching how easy it is to get folks to give in to censorship and tyranny for psychological “safety” scares me sometimes (especially when it’s all due to politics). No matter what someone’s views are (and how offensive I may find them to be), I’ll never ever advocate for their censorship, because I understand where that can lead. Today, it’s your opponent; tomorrow, it’s you.
- whimsicalism 1y ago
  liberalism is passé nowadays, but it will see a resurgence akin to the “hard times make hard people, hard people make good times” cycle
- SamoyedFurFluff 1y ago
  I actually don’t know if I agree with the last part. A chunk of the Rwandan genocide was a radio station instigating and advocating for the mass slaughter of a people. Atrocities in Myanmar also were originally advocated for in Facebook. On more personal levels, domestic abuse is also psychological torture and the wearing down of a person with words and it should be in someone’s right to file a restraining order to stop being contacted by their abuser even if the abuser doesn’t perform physical violence. That is to say I broadly agree with the notion that speech should be relatively unfettered, but I do believe there must be exceptions for speech that actively aims to fetter people. We must limit speech that advocates limiting the freedoms of people to live as independent and equal citizens.

lionturtle 1y ago

It was absolutely not just social media ban, it was mostly youth protesting against the corrupt government and unfairness, social media ban was one element that was against the freedom of speech, but it was right around the time where everyone was documenting the rich politicians, their business connections and their families that have been living lavishly and just inheriting the election seats from generation to generation and spinning beurocracy to their sides. I was there a few hours ago. It was a class struggle, but it was bound to be spun up as "kids don't get facebook and throw tantrum".

deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
bhickey 1y ago
The corruption is simply incredible. About fifteen years ago I found myself in Kathmandu after getting altitude sickness. The team's fixer brought me to lunch with some government officials. The topic of discussion? How to steal from a hydroelectric project. One of his guests outright asked, "should we be talking about this in front of this guy?" The fixer shrugged it off saying "he's a Westerner, what is he going to do about it?" And, well, he was right. It wasn't like I could go report it to the police. Years later the fixer was finally jailed for gold smuggling. https://english.khabarhub.com/2022/16/232667/ https://english.khabarhub.com/2022/16/232667/ Edit: add link
- robertlagrant 1y ago
  Just went to look you up on your profile to see why you might be hanging out with government officials, and just fyi your website link seems gone.
  - mothballed 1y ago
    It's not terribly unusual to end up with random government officials if you're a white guy going into a non-touristy part of the 3rd world. I went to a village in Paraguay, first thing locals did was take me to some government project creating an industrial cow milking operation where I was promptly offered an engineering job. Low-level 3rd world officials love showing off whatever they're doing to whoever will listen. They usually don't have much else to do. It is best to accept their offer and drink the tea with them or whatever, get on their good side and talk about how modern their little village is, and get on their good graces.

mcny 1y ago

What's missing in this discussion is the infiltration by agitating forces trying to muddy the waters. There are the regressive forces trying to bring back the monarchy which can't be good for anyone. No kings.

checker659 1y ago
Kids died today. Not jholays.
- JKCalhoun 1y ago
  Had to "phone a friend" on that one: "In Nepal, “jhola” (bag) turned into “jholay” is slang. It usually refers to people—often students, activists, or intellectual types—who carry a cloth bag (jhola) and are associated with being overly “bookish,” pseudo-intellectual, leftist, or idealistic. Depending on tone, it can be affectionate, neutral, or dismissive (like calling someone a “hippie” or “armchair intellectual” in English)." EDIT: sounds like "my friend" is hallucinating. Thanks, actual people for helping me understand jholay. It seemed lazy though to simply ask in the comments, "What's jholay?"
  - mcny 1y ago
    My understanding is a jholey is a sycophant who does not have their own political principles but are "carrying the bag" for someone else. Closer to paid thugs than idealistic activists. Might want to consider a different phone a friend.
  - amulyabaral 1y ago
    Nepali here. In this context, a jholey is a party foot soldier. An unquestioning party worker who would literally carry their leader's bag, follow them everywhere, and do any menial task in hopes of gaining political favor.

pwndByDeath 1y ago

I wish my government would ban those attention traps too... Or perhaps less hyperbolicly, I wish people wouldn't use those platforms for their valuable free speech, and perhaps save their words for only the most valuable of utterances. But then they would all be here on HN. ;)

CommenterPerson 1y ago
A ban would be a terrible idea. Some appropriate regulation and breaking up of monopolies might improve the situation. It's heartening to see the EU initiatives.

asib 1y ago

> The demonstration turned violent when some protesters entered the Parliament complex, prompting police to resort to baton charges, tear gas shells and rubber bullets to disperse the crowd, eyewitnesses said. 14 people dead from so-called "non-lethal" means. How do 14 people end up dead without the police coming with intent to do harm?

bjackman 1y ago
Also note the phrasing. The content is "the police killed 14 people". But the form is "the situation turned violent as a result of the protester's actions".
- ddtaylor 1y ago
  "See what you made me do" is a common phrase in domestic abuse.
  - whamlastxmas 1y ago
    It’s also irrefutable fact that pro-state or pro-cop agitators throughout history will pretend to be a demonstrator and throw a single brick to give the cops an excuse to break some skulls
    - martin-t 1y ago
      In primitive societies where people are expected to resolve their own problems because everyone is roughly equal, violence is the principal currency, for better or worse. But in "civilized" societies with multiple layers of power structures, you are not supposed to solve your own problem, you are supposed to show somebody in a position of power that you are the victim so they solve the problem for you. This means victimhood is the principal currency of power. Don't believe me? Every governments which allows protests says they must always be peaceful and "violence doesn't belong in politics". Yet how many of those governments were created by violent armed revolt against a previous authoritarian government? How many by "peaceful" protests?

estebarb 1y ago

I'm afraid that website was hacked. It only redirects me to fraudulent raffles and casino stuff such as https://cdn.aucey.com/sweeps-survey/1034/es.html https://cdn.aucey.com/sweeps-survey/1034/es.html

didntcheck 1y ago
Same experience here. Their ads repeatedly hijack the tab Try this instead https://archive.is/zv17z https://archive.is/zv17z . Not perfect, but the text can still be read behind the popover
trashburger 1y ago
Check your browser/OS, works fine here.
- Pikamander2 1y ago
  Rogue browser extensions are very rare these days. When people get redirected to malicious sites, it's almost always either due to the site having an infected WordPress installation or using a sketchy ad network.
  - nobody9999 1y ago
    >When people get redirected to malicious sites, it's almost always either due to the site having an infected WordPress installation or using a sketchy ad network. That's often true. However, in this case when visiting the linked page[0] I am able to connect and view the article without issue. Some details: Location: USA Browser: Firefox 128.14.0esr Ublock Origin running with mostly default settings Perhaps there's a location blocking issue and/or malware that targets certain locations/browser types? [0] https://www.tribuneindia.com/news/world/massive-protests-in-nepal-over-social-media-ban/ https://www.tribuneindia.com/news/world/massive-protests-in-...

Aeolun 1y ago

They need the military to deal with the teenagers? I guess if all you have is a hammer…

seydor 1y ago
Kinda like what the US does
- throwawayq3423 1y ago
  The U.S. sends its military to kill teenagers?

christabsmith 1y ago

[dead]

beardyw 1y ago

> The prime minister said the party is not against social media, “but what cannot be accepted is those doing business in Nepal, making money, and yet not complying with the law”. I accept that there is corruption and manipulation by the government, but experience tells us also that these companies may be avoiding taxes towards zero.

alephnerd 1y ago
They have all registered with Nepal's revenue office and are paying VAT [0] The issue is the government in Nepal wants every social media holding company to have a designated person in Nepal who they can directly communicate with for takedowns without going through the traditional process, and if the company does not flllow through, hold that person legally liable. It's a blatant censorship ploy because protests and dissatisfaction against the KP Sharma Oli, Sher Bahadur Deuba, and Prachanda musical chairs along with various constant corruption scandals are pushing Nepalis to ask for an alternative. [0] - https://ekantipur.com/business/2025/01/28/en/from-google-meta-paying-them-in-nepal-due-to-41-crore-58-06.html https://ekantipur.com/business/2025/01/28/en/from-google-met...
- wtcactus 1y ago
  So, very similar to what happened with X in Brazil.
- baggachipz 1y ago
  Ah, so they did the right thing for the (very) wrong reasons. Shame.
- whimsicalism 1y ago
  i’m pretty sure that’s a standard requirement.. or at least extremely similar to how Brazil does it and i think similar for lots of EU countries
  - alephnerd 1y ago
    The difference is, you can trust an EU country isn't filing a claim to put down a color revolution or that you can appeal via the judiciary. A hybrid regime like Nepal is not like that.

jacknews 1y ago

Today is UNESCO's International Literacy Day, and this year's theme is digital literacy. Quite ironic to choose this day to start trying to make an entire nation digitally illiterate.

newyankee 1y ago
Might be the wrong reasons, but highly skewed and externally controlled social media do not necessarily mean bastions of free speech, they have shown that powerful group with right incentives and structures can capture and influence perception. Everyone has biases and social media will reinforce or amplify them if an external adversary uses in a targeted way. Also while free speech and protests are important, the nature of protests or certain elements fuelling fire in the resentment can lead to these becoming completely out of control and destroying property or harming passersby. Sometimes pure anarchy is the goal of routine rabble rousers who use this opportunity. So I will go out on a limb over here and say no one over here really knows what happened in the sequence of decision making by the police and there may be some instances where certain actions may have been justified to avoid further escalation.
- jacknews 1y ago
  education education education

Tom_987 1y ago

[dead]

happyweasel 1y ago

Oh, let me guess... The protests were organized by groups that get their funding from the NED or other Western sponsored NGOs ? (Asking for a friend)

JumpCrisscross 1y ago
No evidence of any of that. I don’t see how it’s incredible to believe students will flip out if you ban social media. (Though the meme of all protests and civil discontent in Asia being the product of Western influence is a popular one among right-wing circles.)
- zahlman 1y ago
  > the meme of all protests and civil discontent in Asia being the product of Western influence is a popular one among right-wing circles I listen to enough "right-wing circles" to end up getting people tarnishing me as one just for standing up for them (despite all kinds of progressive views) and I frankly don't know what you're talking about. My friends that tend to get interpreted as "right-coded" have historically been supportive of protest movements in Taiwan and Hong Kong.
  - JumpCrisscross 1y ago
    In Asia.

n3storm 1y ago

Negatives here we come: How can this post get to HN front-page and not any USAn turmoil, Gaza or Argentina libertarian downfall news?

JumpCrisscross 1y ago
This is novel. I didn’t know this was happening and am learning a lot from informed comments. That…doesn’t tend to describe those other topics’ discourse.
cbHXBY1D 1y ago
I think it is a fair question: why is this allowed to stay on the front page while the deaths of people in Gaza is not? Israel just killed a bunch of journalists for organizations like the Associated Press in a double tap strike on a hospital and we're not allowed to discuss it?

objektif 1y ago

I hope beautiful people of Nepal finally take down the corrupt scum that has been holding their country back for generations.

maxlin 1y ago

https://archive.is/zv17z https://archive.is/zv17z (reposting as a top level comment, thanks to original poster)

abijoy 1y ago

[dead]

screye 1y ago

Nepal is an interesting nation. Compared to nearby poor nations, Nepal is safe and its people are perceived to be welcoming. It's the only serious candidate for being a ski-nation in all of mainland Asia. If Nepal wanted, it could transform itself into a Bali style tourist destination and ascend towards being a middle economy. Unlike India, Pakistan and Bangladesh, which have to solve 1-billion-people scale problems, at 30 million, Nepal can resort to scaled down solutions. Nepal's refusal to leverage the (few) advantages of its geography is baffling. The internal politics are even more bizarre. As a communist-adjacent nation, it has a closed off economy with deep suspicion towards free markets. Yet, the national messaging alternates between blaming India or China for all their problems. The local populace (like every populace) eats this up. From my observations, neither nation affects Nepal's economics much. (national security is a separate conversation) > protests reflect young people's widespread frustration with government action to tackle corruption and boost economic opportunities. South Asia is coming off a recent protest->overthrow movement in Bangladesh. The youth protesters had similar complaints. Yet, the outcome was an even less democratic system which now owed favors to the violent parts of the society that helped complete the ouster. Similarly, Nepal has a history of political instability and violent ousters, most of which had led of very little economic change. The youth's complaints are valid and I support their protests. However, do the protesters have an outcome in mind ? They want an improved economy. But, will they be okay with opening Nepal up to free markets ? This may mean selling resort building contracts to major western ski companies. It may mean opening unsafe sweatshops for Adidas to make shoes there. It may mean resource exploration by foreign mining companies. I say this, because this is a South Asian disease. We want our nations to have a strong economy. But, economic liberalization can sometimes look like colonization, and this hurts the ego of proud global-south nations. We want progress, while keeping all foreign influence at bay. We want social welfare, but the nation is bankrupt. It's paradoxical. When our nations do move towards markets, it happens at gunpoint (1991) or with steep political costs (Farm Bill, GST) to the the incumbent. Not sure what the solution is here. But, the last decade has made me suspicious towards protest movements that do not have positive policy outcomes in mind. The student's anger is valid, but impressionable students are the the time-honored vanguard used by more powerful opposition to trigger coups.

kylehotchkiss 1y ago

josfredo 1y ago

It is hard not to use social medias in this age, and the citizens have the right to fight for them, even if it resolves in their deaths. As with pouring water, the world keeps spinning, and the strife goes on.

haleem123 1y ago

Seems like a chapter out of the recent Sarah Wynn-Williams book Careless People: A Cautionary Tale of Power, Greed, and Lost Idealism Hardcover https://www.amazon.com/Careless-People-Cautionary-Power-Idealism/dp/B0DZ8KM7RR https://www.amazon.com/Careless-People-Cautionary-Power-Idea...

rpac0 1y ago

Every major global news outlet is portraying Nepal’s protest as being against a “social media ban.” That is misleading. Even most large local media houses are pushing the same narrative—which is not surprising, since many of them serve as PRs agents for political parties. A bit about Nepal—the government here is run by a bunch of old farts. They are deeply corrupt and will do anything, legal or not, to protect their positions and continue embezzling the national budget. They lack accountability because they know they can/and have gotten away with anything. Example of a recent one [1]. Their children live lavishly, flexing their designer bags and watches, while the commoners struggle working tough jobs overseas just to survive. They know that by controlling social media—as they already did with TikTok—they can censor any news about their corruption (which is a norm here) easily and keep the people in dark and in their favor. Now, they want Meta and Google to comply with their agenda and with the election coming, they need this bad! This protest was never about a “social media ban.” It was against years and years of corruption, embezzlement and censorship. It was supposed to be peaceful. But politics here is a dirty game, and these veterans are seasoned pros. They hired goons to infiltrate the peaceful crowds, cause chaos and damage public property—a very old tactic here. That is how the demonstration spiraled out of control. If you want to hear the voices of real people, look at r/Nepal and r/NepalSocial on Reddit. And ask yourself—do you really think people are ready to risk their lives just for social media? [1] https://old.reddit.com/r/NepalSocial/comments/1n9ra2q/hit_and_run_doesnt_matter_who_was_at_fault_at/ https://old.reddit.com/r/NepalSocial/comments/1n9ra2q/hit_an...

njsubedi 1y ago

The count is 19. And it's mostly students, few of who were still in their school uniform. Many head injuries, and death by bullets on the head. This is the darkest day in Nepal! Edit: And the protest was against corrupt politicians, not social media ban.

nirava 1y ago
The count's gone up. I didn't go to the protest but the friends that went say they're probably under-counting considering how many shots were fired right in front of them. PS fancy seeing you here!

bbminner 1y ago

In the meantime, Russia erected a copy of the great Chinese firewall with DPI and everything - blocking YouTube, foreign news, most voice chat apps, most vpn traffic, and even actively dropping ssh connections when too much bidirectional sustained traffic is being detected.

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allfornepal 1y ago

Pretty sure this number will increase to lot more in coming days, terrible to see this state of a beautiful country.

kelvinjps10 1y ago

I remember people here in a previous thread saying that the people supported the ban, well it doesn't seem like it's the case

nirava 1y ago
supporters of the ban in 3 camps: - "if social media won't follow our laws, we should ban them" - "I am affiliated to this party so this is ok" - "social media bad, hence ban good" of course the deeper issue was that the social media was banned because it helped backlash against the powerful spread. and backlash mostly well-deserved because of the objectively pro-corruption anti-press anti-people laws being proposed and passed. In many ways, this protest and this massacre was probably step n and n+1 in the process rather than an accident:

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nemo44x 1y ago

Imagine dying because you can’t post on Facebook so you rioted and vandalized government buildings.

aavshr 1y ago
Please make yourself aware of all the facts before posting ignorant comments like this. Children died, shot while protesting against blatant corruption and lack of accountability that's going on for decades. The social media ban was just the final straw. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/9/8/six-killed-in-nepal-amid-gen-z-protests-after-social-media-ban-all-to-know https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/9/8/six-killed-in-nepal-...

topsykreet 1y ago

https://drive.google.com/drive/mobile/folders/18lJGrc5TSlschmkjVfX1f0IwaU1f2KmxjPl6JiXFMPRa5k91QJLJnoUaZKXg-eMZsEn9Mg2X https://drive.google.com/drive/mobile/folders/18lJGrc5TSlsch... Here's the drive link from the protest, recorded on camera.

Fricken 1y ago

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fluoridation 1y ago
Why are you dancing around the issue instead of answering the question? What was the point of making that comment? "Giving a history lesson" is simply bullshit. If you want to say that you're pro-censorship then just say it.
- Fricken 1y ago
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  - fluoridation 1y ago
    If the price of free speech is that racists have free speech, then I'm willing to pay it.
    - Fricken 1y ago
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      - fluoridation 1y ago
        Interesting. So do you think if Facebook hadn't existed the obvious racial tensions also wouldn't have existed?
        Fricken 1y ago
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        fluoridation 1y ago
        Not to the point of one group wanting to enact genocide on another, so that's completely irrelevant, and you know it. If Facebook hadn't existed, would the genocide still have happened? Since you seem to be in a deflecting mood, I'm going to answer for you: yes. If you have one group that hates another, removing a technological means of communication solves nothing.

zippo_the_zippo 1y ago

Many news articles have failed to mention that the social media ban in Nepal was a direct response to a viral "nepo-baby vs. regular youth" online campaign, which ultimately backfired. https://www.timesnownews.com/viral/why-nepo-kid-campaign-is-going-viral-amid-social-media-whatsapp-facebook-instagram-youtube-ban-protests-in-nepal-ban-article-152709602 https://www.timesnownews.com/viral/why-nepo-kid-campaign-is-... The government framed the ban as a measure against "unregistered social media" platforms. However, major companies like Facebook and YouTube have been registered and paying taxes for years. These companies did not agree to the government's overly controlling bill, which had not even been passed into law. The K.P. Oli government attempted to bypass a public vote and enforce it as a directive, threatening non-compliant apps with bans. https://www.law-democracy.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Nepal.Social-Media-Bill_2025_Eng.pdf https://www.law-democracy.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Nep...