Kathmandu, 5 January. By Kushal Basnet
‘She used to hang on to it all day long. The house and the work had become a mess. Things are now getting back in order,’ a tea shop owner in Maitidevi, Kathmandu relates the TikTok ban in Nepal to his wife’s productivity.
His wife views the ban quite differently. ‘It was not that bad. For me, it was a way of refreshing myself. Now it has been banned, but it is not something to lament over.’
The tea shop owners, who wished to remain anonymous, have largely come out of the ‘content loop’ of the popular video platform to resume their everyday lives.
The Nepal government imposed a ban on TikTok in November, citing ‘negative effects on social harmony.’ The reception of the ban is mixed and goes beyond the anecdote of a working wife and a happy husband.
A curb on vulgarity
Earlier in 2018, Nepal banned pornographic websites to tackle the rise in sexual violence cases. A faction of supporters of the TikTok ban point towards the spread of vulgarity through the platform.
Arun Acharya, a 40-year-old resident of Chabahil, Kathmandu, and his 38-year-old wife Sharmila Dahal believe that the TikTok ban has helped curb ‘vulgarity’ on the internet.
‘TikTok was useful in many ways. It was my go-to source for news and updates. But, the trade-off was not acceptable,’ said Dahal. ‘I have a growing son who uses my phone often. I was not happy with the sort of vulgar content he had to go through while using TikTok.’
Acharya and Dahal represent a community that is concerned over the increasing consumption of disturbing content on social media. However, some argue that a wholesale ban on the platform is not justified by the need to curb ‘disturbing’ content.
Aryan Pariyar, a 20-year-old student, is currently learning Korean in the quest for a foreign employment opportunity. He is more concerned about the downsides of the ban because of it targeting a large population of users while acknowledging that there are some negative elements associated with the platform.
‘The ban on TikTok is complicated. The government could have banned the individuals whose conduct on the platform is questionable,’ said Pariyar.
The demise of a sphere
Pariyar, who was a passive content consumer rather than a regular content creator on the platform, empathises with those who are affected by the ban.
‘To completely shut down a platform is to destroy the economic activities building around it,’ explained Pariyar while adding that TikTok is associated with ‘music’ and the music industry is among the well-performing industries in Nepal.
As soon as the ban was imposed, many TikTokers raised their voices against the move on other social media platforms while some others took to the streets, calling for a retraction of the decision.
Eva Giri, a TikTok influencer, went on to say that she was ‘doing business through TikTok’, for which she was trolled. Anjana Aryal, who regularly shared recipes on the platform while building a food business around her audience, went on to report that she completely lost her business following the ban.
The users of TikTok have resorted to another similar platform–Likee. A group of Nepali entrepreneurs hurried to fill the void with a similar app named ‘Ramailo’, but the app has not been able to impress Nepali TikTok users. Meanwhile, Instagram’s Reels, which was designed to be a TikTok rival, is also gaining traction in Nepal.
‘I and my friends are using Instagram Reels and other platforms as an alternative to TikTok. So, the ban does not seem to have changed anything,’ said Ridhima Gurung, a 19-year-old student at Brooklyn College.
The number of TikTok users in Nepal was well above 2 million before the ban, according to Internet Service Providers in Nepal. TikTok users agree that they used the platform for entertainment while accessing useful information such as health tips and life hacks.
The political flavour
Interestingly, the government had the backing of the main opposition CPN UML on the ban. However, civil society organizations were quick to criticize the government’s move. A group of civil society organizations, including Freedom Forum Nepal, Human Rights Organization Nepal, and Nepal Internet Foundation, among others, jointly issued a statement stressing that the government move is “extremely untimely and arbitrary and that it seriously attacks the basic principles of democracy, weakens civil liberties, and undermines the rule of law.”
‘It is not just about freedom of expression. National and international politics also seem to have some role in it,’ said Upendra Rajbanshi, a student leader at Tri-Chandra College, Kathmandu. ‘The government was facing strong domestic resistance. The UN Secretary-General had visited Nepal just before the ban. It is worth noting that TikTok, allegedly a China-based company, has been banned globally as a response to the increase in Chinese influence.’
The ban came at a time when a demonstration against republicanism, secularism, and federalism announced by Durga Prasai, a medical entrepreneur in Nepal, was nearing. Prasai had succeeded in garnering the support of those frustrated with the current political-economic situation, including the victims of loan sharks.
Several countries have raised concerns over the proximity of ByteDance, the parent company of TikTok, to the Chinese government. The company was even interrogated by the US Congress on the issues of data privacy and espionage in March of this year. Likewise, India banned TikTok along with dozens of other Chinese apps in June 2020, citing a threat to national security and integrity.
Is it going too far?
The craze of the app has made its users go beyond the limits. Some TikTok users have reportedly adopted technical ‘hacks’ to access the platform. ‘I am accessing the app by changing DNS. Nepali content is not very frequent on the platform these days,’ one such user said.
The use of VPNs had become a concern in Nepal after the porn ban. VPNs have become more popular after the ban on TikTok. Cybersecurity experts have warned about the privacy issues associated with the use of VPN to access the platform.
Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal hinted at lifting the ban after some legal reforms in early December. TikTok even approached Nepal’s telecom regulator, showing its interest in working in Nepal legally. It also highlighted that it routinely addresses “content and behaviour” that violate its community guidelines. The new directives, which were adopted a few days before the TikTok ban, require social media platforms operating in Nepal to set up their offices in the country.
However, concerns over the further tightening of the social media sphere are being raised. Rekha Sharma, the Minister for Communications and Information Technology, has openly expressed the government’s desire to curb business activities on social media.
As 2024 begins, the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology has prepared a bill to regulate and manage social media sites. The draft, in its public consultation phase, has received criticisms from the proponents of media freedom. The bill has explicitly provisioned a fine of up to five lakh Nepali rupees for fake or anonymous accounts on social media.