Nepal has decided to ban TikTok, claiming that the app was threatening social order.
The country’s communications and data technology minister, Rekha Sharma, told the BBC Nepali that TikTok spread malicious content.
“The ban will come into effect immediately and telecom authorities have been directed to implement the choice,” she said.
Nepali prime minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal defended the choice at an event in the town of Bhaktapur.
“After a protracted discussion on how to control the tendency to spread disharmony, disorder, and chaos within the society … a consensus was reached amongst all political parties, including each the ruling party and the opposition,” he said.
Nonetheless, Gagan Thapa, leader of the Nepali Congress Party which is an element of the ruling coalition, said the federal government’s intention seemed to be to “stifle freedom of expression”.
“Regulation is crucial to discourage those that abuse social media, but shutting down social media within the name of regulation is totally unsuitable,” he posted on X.
Web service providers have been requested to cut access to the app. WorldLink Communications, which bills itself as the biggest web service provider in Nepal, has complied and other providers are expected to follow soon, the federal government said.
Several countries have banned TikTok, which is owned by Chinese tech giant Bytedance and has a couple of billion monthly users.
Nepal’s ban comes greater than three years after India also banned TikTok, together with several other Chinese apps, with the justification that they posed a “threat to sovereignty and integrity.”
On the time, TikTok had an estimated 120 million users within the country, thus wiping out one in every of the app’s biggest markets.
Other countries, including Australia, have banned TikTok on government devices due to spying concerns. Bytedance has long maintained that TikTok doesn’t share data with the Chinese government.