Signals in the Fire: The Impact of Banning Global Tech in Nepal(schmud.de)
schmud.de
Signals in the Fire: The Impact of Banning Global Tech in Nepal
https://schmud.de/posts/2025-09-18-signs-in-the-fire-kathmandu.html
https://schmud.de/posts/2025-09-18-signs-in-the-fire-kathmandu.html
Making it a takeaway about Section 230 is completely misunderstanding WHY the anger existed.
The social media ban was just the straw that broke the camels back.
And romanticizing the violence is doing a disservice to the protesters and organizers like Hami Nepal who came out against corruption.
The violence itself was politicized bloodletting with party jholeys/karyakartas/cadres hijacking the protests to conduct violence on those businesses aligned with their political competitors.
> Public records were not spared. When the protesters stormed the Supreme Court they also destroyed records kept therein. What is the use of court documents in a country where the corruption continues year after year, decade after decade
Because now jholeys and politicians under active investigation for corruption, rape, and murder now have the evidence in their cases destroyed, and cannot be convicted or even held ;)
> Oli’s attempt to rein in social media was unlikely gamble for a more U.S.-aligned figure
Oli is China aligned. In Nepali power politics, it's China and India that are wheeling and dealing. The US is a bit player in all this.
> Nepal’s government, though discredited by corruption across the spectrum, still gave space for a genuine Left
There is no genuine left or right in Nepal. Nepal is a country where communist parties will campaign using Hindutva and evoke "Ram Rajya" as well as work closely with Hindutva icons like Baba Ramdev (who's chela Balkrishna is Nepali as well) and Yogi Adityanath. And notably, the entire leadership in Nepal are Khas Brahmins in a country where they only make up at most 5-6% of the population.
Either your party's leadership is backed by the Chinese (eg. Oli) or your party's leadership is back by the Indians (eg. Deuba and Prachanda). Nepal is sadly an ant stuck between an elephant and a dragon dueling it out to build lebensraum.