NEPAL BANS 26 SOCIAL MEDIA PLATFORMS, INCLUDING FACEBOOK & YOUTUBE
NEW DELHI ; The K.P. Sharma Oli government on Thursday (September 4, 2025) decided to ban as many as 26 social media platforms, including Facebook, X (formerly Twitter), Instagram, and YouTube, citing their failure to meet the deadline to comply with registration requirements in Nepal.
Issuing a public notice, the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology said it “has ordered the Nepal Telecommunication Authority to make inactive all non-registered social media sites until they are registered.”
After repeated requests, the government again, on August 28, set a seven-day deadline for social media platforms to register in Nepal. That deadline expired on Wednesday night.
On Wednesday afternoon, Gajendra Thakur, spokesperson for the Ministry, said that the government was hopeful social media companies would approach them before midnight. If they didn’t, he said, the government would act accordingly.
As none approached, a meeting at the Ministry on Thursday then made the decision to enforce the ban.
Free speech advocates have objected to the move, saying it is less about regulation and more about silencing dissenting voices.
They believe the government’s registration conditions, which include stringent oversight and control measures, may have been deemed unrealistic and intrusive by many social media companies, likely prompting their refusal to register.
‘Ban misguided’
Ujjwal Acharya, director of the Centre for Media Research, called the decision misguided, saying the ban comes at the expense of Nepal’s democratic image.
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