Nepal ordered shutdown of major social media platforms that failed to register with the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology and provide local contacts, grievance handlers and self-regulation officers. Companies had a deadline of Wednesday; unregistered platforms will be deactivated starting today. Meta, Alphabet, X, Reddit and LinkedIn were among those asked to register. A 2023 directive required platforms with millions of users in Nepal to establish a local presence. Only five platforms including TikTok and Viber have formally registered, with two others in process. Digital Rights Nepal said the sudden closure is controlling and harms fundamental public rights.
We gave them enough time to register and repeatedly requested them to comply with our request, but they ignored [this], and we had to shut their operations in Nepal.
This directly hits the fundamental rights of the public, Dhungana said. It is not wrong to regulate social media, but we first need to have the legal infrastructure to enforce it. A sudden closure like this is controlling.
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