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Nepal Bans 26 Social Media Platforms, Including Facebook and YouTube

nytimes.com

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Re: Nepal Bans 26 Social Media Platforms, Including Facebook and YouTube

#41

Post by ycombigators »

ffjffsfr wrote: post #27

People in the west are so used to freedom of speech and so focused on problems with social media. They miss the fact, that many authoritarian governments in Asia see freedom of speech in social media as a threat. They are not banning Facebook to improve quality of life, they want to limit freedom of speech.

And equally, we in the west are so used to genuine free expression of ideas we assume everyone who speaks is real and genuine. Meanwhile, outside actors are weaponising social media to divide us, errode trust and spread conspiracies. There are worse things that banning American media platforms - look at what they are doing to America.

Re: Nepal Bans 26 Social Media Platforms, Including Facebook and YouTube

#43

Post by KaiserPro »

ffjffsfr wrote: post #27

People in the west are so used to freedom of speech and so focused on problems with social media. They miss the fact, that many authoritarian governments in Asia see freedom of speech in social media as a threat. They are not banning Facebook to improve quality of life, they want to limit freedom of speech.

> They are not banning Facebook to improve quality of life, they want to limit freedom of speech.

Freedom of speech is great, but not if its used by your neighbours to stir up trouble. (the civil war was long https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nepalese_Civil_War)

One thing the "west" ie the USA needs to understand (well they'll know very shortly) is that the right to consume propaganda from your countries enemies is not the same as being able to criticise your government for doing a bad job/breaking the law/killing it's own citizens.

Facebook et al is not a neutral platform, it is a vector for other states, and non state actors to whip up outrage and division.

> many authoritarian governments in Asia see freedom of speech in social media as a threat

Yup, because it is a threat.

see Myanmar, Thailand, Malaysia to name just a few. all have had large scale unrest transmitted and amplfied by facebook. Now are they nice governments? no. did facebook help bring democracy? also no, they helped pinpoint activists and let the government(s) kidnap them.

The indian anti-muslim movement is properly being whipped up by the BJP and others, using facebook to get to the people that don't have TVs. Facebook is a big part in why they are still in power.

Re: Nepal Bans 26 Social Media Platforms, Including Facebook and YouTube

#44

Post by ktosobcy »

ffjffsfr wrote: post #27

People in the west are so used to freedom of speech and so focused on problems with social media. They miss the fact, that many authoritarian governments in Asia see freedom of speech in social media as a threat. They are not banning Facebook to improve quality of life, they want to limit freedom of speech.

on the grandour... yes, USA is the pinacle of "freedom" whole world should aspire to! /s

Re: Nepal Bans 26 Social Media Platforms, Including Facebook and YouTube

#45

Post by KaiserPro »

cloverich wrote: post #35
whatsupdog wrote: post #16

Americans: social media is bad! It should be banned. Americans, after an Asian country does it: free speech!!!

Social media causes active harm to people, we know that. Social media has also been demonstrably used to help overthrow authoritarian governments. Thus you have a context-dependent dichotomy in how we view it, and if you eschew the context (and pretend it is purely nationalistic / ethnic), it feels a bit like you are intentionally trying to derail an otherwise productive conversation that could be had instead.

> Social media has also been demonstrably used to help overthrow authoritarian governments.

It triggered the arab spring, but after that its pretty much used to pinpoint activists and destroy them before they get a chance to organise.

Re: Nepal Bans 26 Social Media Platforms, Including Facebook and YouTube

#46

Post by andai »

KaiserPro wrote: post #43
ffjffsfr wrote: post #27

People in the west are so used to freedom of speech and so focused on problems with social media. They miss the fact, that many authoritarian governments in Asia see freedom of speech in social media as a threat. They are not banning Facebook to improve quality of life, they want to limit freedom of speech.

> They are not banning Facebook to improve quality of life, they want to limit freedom of speech. Freedom of speech is great, but not if its used by your neighbours to stir up trouble. (the civil war was long https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nepalese_Civil_War ) One thing the "west" ie the USA needs to understand (well they'll know very shortly) is that the right to consume propaganda from your countries enemies is not…

I heard TikTok has a Chinese version which promotes educational content, has time restrictions etc.

The "export" version... not so much.

Re: Nepal Bans 26 Social Media Platforms, Including Facebook and YouTube

#48

Post by cproctor »

ffjffsfr wrote: post #27

People in the west are so used to freedom of speech and so focused on problems with social media. They miss the fact, that many authoritarian governments in Asia see freedom of speech in social media as a threat. They are not banning Facebook to improve quality of life, they want to limit freedom of speech.

I thought this [1] New Yorker profile of the chief justice of Brazil's Supreme Court was a fascinating and thoughtful analysis of how tech giants interact with less-powerful countries. Surely we all agree that free speech is not absolute (e.g. we could probably agree that there should exist some boundary with respect to libel, threats/violent speech acts, national security, corporations as legal persons with free speech rights, the right or duty of platforms to regulate content, influence of money in politics...) and that therefore states have a legitimate interest in regulating free speech.

The "free speech" of tech platforms also comes with colonial power structures in which the tech company makes these decisions and imposes them on countries.

[1] https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2025/04/14/the-brazilian-...

Re: Nepal Bans 26 Social Media Platforms, Including Facebook and YouTube

#49

Post by petralithic »

ffjffsfr wrote: post #27

People in the west are so used to freedom of speech and so focused on problems with social media. They miss the fact, that many authoritarian governments in Asia see freedom of speech in social media as a threat. They are not banning Facebook to improve quality of life, they want to limit freedom of speech.

Yes, and it's shocking to see people cheer it on. An oft-heard refrain is about the legal right of the first amendment of the US constitution preventing the government from blocking speech, but that is based on the natural right of freedom of speech, as Hobbes and Locke would differentiate. Social media platforms are at such a scale in the modern day that they are essentially the public square, so the government blocking them is akin to blocking free speech in the legal right itself.

Some might say, you can publish elsewhere on your own domain, but again, it's like barricading the public square and only allowing one to speak in the middle of a forest; if no one but the trees listen, what is the point of the natural right to free speech?

Re: Nepal Bans 26 Social Media Platforms, Including Facebook and YouTube

#50

Post by ycombigators »

isaacremuant wrote: post #34
ffjffsfr wrote: post #27

People in the west are so used to freedom of speech and so focused on problems with social media. They miss the fact, that many authoritarian governments in Asia see freedom of speech in social media as a threat. They are not banning Facebook to improve quality of life, they want to limit freedom of speech.

What freedom of speech? The "first world countries" in Europe are slowly turning up the surveillance state to not let people online if they don't provide their IDs, they want to surveil every private conversation you have at home, if it uses the internet in any way, they'd love banning encryption, VPNs, etc... but you have freedom of speech? Except when talking about thinks that are deemed "pro enemy" (Russia or whoe…

Democracy cannot survive unless we find a way to ensure we know when are listening to the people that are part of our demos and NOT people that are outside of it, actively trying to destroy it.

We had freedom of speech in the west before the Internet. That speech was not anonymous.

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