Nepal Banned Many Social Media Sites

On Thursday, September 4, 2025, the K.P. Sharma Oli government decided to ban 26 social media platforms, such as Facebook, X, Instagram, and YouTube, because they didn’t meet the deadline for registration requirements in Nepal.

The Ministry of Communications and Information Technology has put out a public notice stating that it has instructed the Nepal Telecommunication Authority to deactivate all unregistered social media sites until they get registered.

After several requests, the government once again set a seven day deadline for social media platforms to register in Nepal on August 28.

That deadline ran out on Wednesday night.

On Wednesday afternoon, Gajendra Thakur, the spokesperson for the Ministry, mentioned that the government was optimistic that social media companies would reach out to them before midnight.

If they didn’t, he warned that the government would take appropriate action.

Since no companies reached out, a meeting at the Ministry on Thursday decided to implement the ban.

Advocates for free speech have criticized this action, arguing that it’s more about stifling dissent than about regulation.

They think that the government’s registration requirements, which involve strict oversight and control, might have been seen as unrealistic and intrusive by a lot of social media companies, probably leading to their refusal to register.

Ujjwal Acharya, who is the director of the Center for Media Research, described the decision as misguided, pointing out that the ban undermines Nepal’s democratic image.

“The government made this decision without considering how it will affect ordinary citizens”, he stated.

“This choice is going to damage Nepal’s democratic reputation for a long time and will create a lasting negative view worldwide”.

The government has made its decision to ban the sites based on a recent Supreme Court ruling and its own Directives Relating to the Regulation for Usage of Social Media.

This isn’t the first instance of Nepal banning a social media platform.

In November 2023, then Pushpa Kamal Dahal government blocked TikTok, which led to a lot of backlash.

The ban was eventually lifted in August 2024 after TikTok agreed to register in Nepal.

In this latest situation, the government had previously asked platforms to register four times, each time with similar deadlines.

However, those earlier requests were only made by the Ministry.

This time, the order to register came from a Cabinet decision.