Nepal has lifted a ban on social media platforms following mass protests and the killing of 19 people in clashes with security forces, a government minister said.
Cabinet spokesman and Minister of Communication and Information Technology Prithvi Subba Gurung said early on Tuesday that the government had rolled back the social media ban imposed last week.
While it may not be the most noble cause, this is proof that people, specifically young people, do have the power to change things if sufficiently organized and united.
It was a good cause told a different way and minimized across the world.
The protest isn’t mainly about social media ban, it’s more against years of corruption.
So dumb. Citizens literally forcing the government to allow the tech corps to continue to fuck over their society.
So you’re missing the nuance of it because media does a poor job of explaining said nuance. The youth have almost no future and no way to earn any real income and anyone that can, have moved to other countries. You grow up hearing that you need to do well in school and get a college education but for what purpose? The political parties are corrupt beyond belief and have been seen wearing expensive clothes and accessories, their kids riding around in expensive vehicles while average people are struggling to survive. Social media was providing a little bit of relief because gen z were able to earn a little bit of income making YouTube videos and being a content creator and with this ban, even that source of income was shut down. So while the social media ban was the thing that broke the camel’s back, it is more about a protest against corruption, cronyism, and general mess the people.in power have put the country in while they enjoy exorbitant wealth. No one is on Facebook because they like Facebook, they are there because they can earn a little income from it. This is not a void that Lemmy/fediverse can fill, unfortunately.
As is always the case, people don’t go out risking life and limb because they’re mildly inconvenienced, no matter how the broader media tries to paint it.
They do it because they’re being systematically deprived of the very last few footholds they have on survival, on an escape, on a way forward with their lives.
When you squeeze people so much, they have no option - if I’m going to starve to death as a slave, might as well cut out the long suffering and bring some of them down with me. That’s the general atmosphere here…
Interesting nuance. Thanks.
Also wanted to comment that this is what democracy looks like. More or less. It would have been good if this had been done without 19 people dying but the general gist of: fuck off with this bullshit, is well placed
This is by definition what happens when democracy fails and no longer is democracy.
By literally every measure this is anything but democracy.
Absolutely not, this is not democracy. In a democracy, you would vote out the corrupt party and continue with your life.
This is a revolt, and it’s what happens when a government, of any kind, fails its people and also fails to provide them a means of legitimately changing the system.
Doubling down on repression to keep the current system is what leads to rebellion. Seems like the government has backed off, but the seeds are already there…
Absolutely yes
The reality of human nature means that citizens must be engaged in the political process and that the ruling classes need to be kept in line. Democracy does not work if the only consequences to corruption and totalitarianism by the proletariat is to be voted out of office eventually.
The nuance you’re missing is that the social media companies would have been allowed the second they registered with the government. All it would do is allow the Nepalese government to actually contact a representative in order to help protect Nepal from foreign tech companies doing things to control Nepal from afar.
All the protests have done is given these social media companies that flaunted the law massive power. It didn’t stop corruption in Nepal.
They also burned parliament, the national court, burned the politicians houses to the ground and beat them naked through the streets.
I’m not sure where you are getting the idea that the government wants to protect the country and it’s citizens. It’s been clear for a few years that only thing the government wants to do is censor any negative posts/comments where people mention corruption by these politician. Other thing you are also overlooking is that companies like Facebook and google don’t need the traffic from a tiny country like Nepal. What could the population provide a company of those sizes whose GDP per Capita is about $1000. People barely have enough to survive, they aren’t spending money on things that are advertised to them. Facebook and google would happily stop services there instead of being viewed as someone that can be strong armed into helping developing nation stiffle free speech. They don’t need the money and they certainly don’t need the negative publicity. Now I’m saying all of these as someone from Nepal, who has had the opportunity to leave the country for a better life in the US while still having family members in the country who I visit frequently and someone who is intimately familiar with the political ongoings of Nepal. What I see and what I’m saying is how the average protestor is viewing the state of the country. The only difference is that they have to live it while I’m lucky enough to not have to deal with it day to day.
In these situations, governments treat things like “Whatsapp” or “telegram” as social media.
They don’t ban social media so tech corps don’t fuck their population. They ban social media so their population can’t organize against them.
Nepal isn’t banning them for those reasons though. Nepal is very much a country that is trying to not lose its people to the tech corps so they passed a law requiring the tech corps to register to operate in the country, something that is required in numerous other countries.
Must be why they included Signal and Hamro Patro, a Nepalese app with features including news, horoscope, foreign exchange rates, podcasts and Nepali FM radio stations.
This was about information control and limiting the organization options of the people.
I wonder if they know about federation.
Probably not.
Can’t have the proles supporting technologies that support them.
