Protests and court appeals as Nepal’s TikTokers decry the government ban on the app. Manjita Manandhar, the inventor of TikTok in Nepal, was taken aback last week when the Himalayan nation banned the popular social media site for allegedly upsetting “social harmony and goodwill.”
Manandhar creates content for restaurants, hotels, and companies and posts it on the app, making around $1,500 a month. “I was shocked as the decision came suddenly,” Manandhar added.
“Business has halved since the ban, and the income from other social platforms like Instagram and YouTube is not enough to support this loss,” she stated. The 26-year-old shares her earnings with a manager in client communications and a cameraman.
The center-left coalition government of Nepal has just outlawed the app. ByteDance, a Chinese company, owns TikTok. Several nations have worried about the company’s ties to the Chinese government and its global control over user data.
In June 2020, neighboring India banned TikTok and many other applications created by Chinese developers, citing concerns about potential threats to national security and integrity.
However, many people in Nepal said that the ban had eliminated a venue for free expression and severed a source of income.
Numerous individuals staged demonstrations in Kathmandu, calling on the government to lift the ban, and some even submitted cases to the Supreme Court contesting it. The court has asked the administration to submit a written justification for the restriction before a hearing on December 5.
According to cybersecurity expert Rajib Subba, the ban impacted many users of the app, who saw it as “a social medium of livelihood, creativity, innovation, entrepreneurship, and advocacy.” According to Sudhir Parajuli, head of the Internet Service Providers’ Association of Nepal (ISPAN), over 2.2 million TikTok users are in the country.
In a statement to Nepal’s telecom regulator, TikTok said it frequently deals with “content and behavior” that goes against its community rules. It provided no information at all.
According to estimates from the local media, over 1,600 cybercrime incidents have been reported in Nepal over the past four years, most of which have been connected to TikTok.
Sushila Pokharel, a housewife from Nepal who frequently uses the site to share videos of herself singing and dancing, claimed that the restriction robs people of a means of entertainment.
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