A ban of the video hosting service TikTok began in Nepal on November 13, 2023, with the government attributing it to the disruption of social harmony. [1] [2] It was lifted in August 2024. [3]
Nepal has over 2.2 million TikTok users. Nepal banned TikTok due to concerns over its content's impact on society. [4] Home Minister Narayan Kaji highlighted worries about harmful content and youth influence. Despite failed attempts to address these concerns with TikTok directly, the government imposed the ban to protect public interests and promote responsible social media use. [5]
The ban on TikTok in Nepal has sparked concerns like hindrances to business promotions, speculation about political motives, discontent among users reliant on the platform, and criticism regarding democratic principles and freedom of expression. [6] [7]
The ban on TikTok in Nepal had sparked widespread protests and debates across the country, both offline and on social media platforms. [8] Citizens had taken to the streets to voice their opposition to the ban, highlighting their concerns about freedom of expression and the impact on livelihoods. [9] [10] Additionally, a petition challenging the ban was filed in the Supreme Court, although an interim order was not granted. [11]
In August 2024, the ban was lifted after TikTok reached an agreement with government authorities to help identify misuse of the app in real-time and catch cybercrimes. [3]
In Taiwan, censorship involves the suppression of speech or public communication and raises issues of freedom of speech, which is protected by Article 11 of the Constitution of the Republic of China. There exist a number of cases where freedom of speech is restricted by the law, which include defamation, breach of privacy, infringement of copyright, pornography, incitement to commit crimes, sale of prohibited items and distribution of offensive or distributing content.
Internet censorship in Pakistan is due to the governments attempts to control information sent and received using social media and the Internet in Pakistan. Presently, as of December 2024, X is banned, despite the government using the platform to issue official statements.
Censorship in Nepal consists of suppression on the expression of political opinion, religious aspect, and obscenity. The Constitution of Nepal guarantees the fundamental rights of citizens, including the freedom of expression. The right to freedom of expression includes the freedom of opinion and thought no matter what a source is. As the Constitution has been developed to push forward democracy, inconsistencies of the Constitution reform create different meanings of prohibiting censorship. The 2004, 2009, and 2015 Constitution are infamous with the restrictions of the rights which are obscure and open for misinterpretation compared to the Constitution announced in 1990.
ByteDance Ltd. is a Chinese internet technology company headquartered in Haidian, Beijing and incorporated in the Cayman Islands.
TikTok, known in mainland China and Hong Kong as Douyin, is a Chinese short-form video-hosting service owned by Chinese internet company ByteDance. It hosts user-submitted videos, which may range in duration from three seconds to 60 minutes. It can be accessed with a smartphone app or the web.
Bigo Live is a global social live streaming platform owned by BIGO Technology based in Singapore, which was founded in 2014 by David Li and Jason Hu. As of 2019, Bigo Technology is owned by JOYY.
TikTok v. Trump was a lawsuit before the United States District Court for the District of Columbia filed in September 2020 by TikTok as a challenge to President Donald Trump's executive order of August 6, 2020. The order prohibited the usage of TikTok in five stages, the first being the prohibition of downloading the application. On September 27, 2020, a preliminary injunction was issued by Judge Carl J. Nichols blocking enforcement of that executive order. The lawsuit, by then captioned TikTok v. Biden, was dismissed in July 2021, following the Biden Administration's rescission of the executive order.
Many countries have imposed past or ongoing restrictions on the short-form video-hosting service TikTok. Bans from government devices usually stem from national security concerns over potential access of data by the Chinese government. Other bans have cited children's well-being and offensive content such as pornography.
There are reports of TikTok and Douyin censoring political content related to China and other countries as well as content from minority creators. TikTok says that its initial content moderation policies, many of which are no longer applicable, were aimed at reducing divisiveness and were not politically motivated.
In 2020, the United States government announced that it was considering banning the Chinese social media platform TikTok upon a request from then-president Donald Trump, who viewed the app as a national security threat. The result was that TikTok owner ByteDance—which initially planned on selling a small portion of TikTok to an American company—agreed to divest TikTok to prevent a ban in the United States and in other countries where restrictions are also being considered due to privacy concerns, which themselves are mostly related to its ownership by a firm based in China.
The Telegram Messenger application has been blocked by multiple countries.
Libs of TikTok is a handle for various far-right and anti-LGBT social-media accounts operated by Chaya Raichik, a former real estate agent. Raichik uses the accounts to repost content created by left-wing and LGBT people on TikTok, and on other social-media platforms, often with hostile, mocking, or derogatory commentary. The accounts promote hate speech and transphobia, and spread false claims, especially relating to medical care of transgender children. The Twitter account, also known by the handle @LibsofTikTok, has over 3.5 million followers as of September 2024 and has become influential among American conservatives and the political right. Libs of TikTok's social-media accounts have received several temporary suspensions and a permanent suspension from TikTok.
Ronald Merle McNutt was a 33-year-old American man and US Army Reserve veteran from New Albany, Mississippi, who died from suicide by shooting himself under his chin on a Facebook livestream. Recordings of the livestream went viral on various social media platforms due to its shock value.
Events in the year 2023 in Nepal.
The blackout challenge is an internet challenge based around the choking game, which deprives the brain of oxygen. It gained widespread attention on TikTok in 2021, primarily among children. It has been compared to other online challenges and hoaxes that have exclusively targeted a young audience. It has been linked to the deaths of at least twenty children.
The short-form video-hosting service TikTok has been under a de jure nationwide ban in the United States since January 19, 2025, due to the US government's concerns over potential user data collection and influence operations by the government of the People's Republic of China. The ban took effect after ByteDance, the China-based parent company of TikTok, failed to sell the service before the deadline of the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act. Prior to the ban, individual states, cities, universities, and government-affiliated devices had restricted TikTok.
The Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act (PAFACA) is an act of Congress that was signed into law on April 24, 2024, as part of Public Law 118-50. It would ban social networking services within 270 days if they are determined by the president of the United States and relevant provisions to be a "foreign adversary controlled application", with a possible extension of up to 90 days to be granted by the president; the definition covers websites and application software, including mobile apps. The act explicitly applies to ByteDance Ltd. and its subsidiaries—including TikTok—without the need for additional determination, with the company to become compliant by January 19, 2025. It ceases to be applicable if the foreign adversary controlled application is divested and no longer considered to be controlled by a foreign adversary of the United States.
TikTok has been involved in a number of lawsuits since its founding, with a number of them relating to TikTok's data collection techniques.
TikTok, Inc. v. Garland, 604 U.S. ___ (2025), was a United States Supreme Court case brought by ByteDance Ltd. and TikTok on the constitutionality of the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act (PAFACA) based on the Freedom of Speech Clause of the First Amendment, the Bill of Attainder Clause of Article One, Section Nine, and the Due Process Clause and Takings Clause of the Fifth Amendment. The case was consolidated with Firebaugh v. Garland, a lawsuit filed by TikTok content creators against the law.
The Mauritius Social Media Ban of 2024 refers to a temporary suspension of access to major social media platforms in the Republic of Mauritius, imposed on October 31, 2024, by the Information and Communication Technologies Authority (ICTA). Initially set to last until November 11, 2024, coinciding with the country's general elections, the ban was introduced in response to the leakage of sensitive recordings, believed to have been obtained through illegal wiretapping. However, after 24 hours, the government reversed the decision, citing consultations with relevant authorities. The reversal followed significant opposition from political groups and media organizations, raising concerns about the balance between national security and freedom of expression in the digital age.