Nepal on Thursday lifted the ban on popular video-sharing platform TikTok, its communications minister said, nine months after it was suspended for allegedly disturbing “social harmony”.
TikTok, which has nearly a billion monthly users, has faced bans in several countries for allegedly violating data regulations and its potentially harmful impact on young people.
“It has been decided to lift the ban on TikTok,” Communications and Information Technology Minister Prithvi Subba Gurung told reporters after the cabinet meeting.
According to ministry spokesperson Gajendra Kumar Thakur, the decision comes a week after TikTok’s South Asia division approached the minister, saying it would abide by Nepal’s rules and requested the ban be lifted.
Nepal suspended TikTok in November last year, just days after it issued a directive for social media platforms operating in the country to set up offices.
This was followed by an anti-government protest whose leader was popular on TikTok.
The ban was condemned not only by freedom of expression advocates, but also by owners of popular accounts whose lives were changed thanks to the platform, which had around 2.2 million users in the country.
“This news makes me very happy,” Anjana Aryal, a housewife-turned-entrepreneur who shared recipes on TikTok, told AFP.
“The ban has had a devastating impact on many creators like me who benefited from the app.”
Since the ban, Aryaal and other prominent Nepali content creators have lost their source of income, putting their livelihood at risk.
“Many people have moved to Instagram and Facebook, but they don’t have as much reach. Once TikTok comes back, I will be very busy again,” she said.
Advocate Dinesh Tripathi, who challenged the decision in court, said the verdict was a “victory for freedom of expression”.
He said, “Freedom of expression is an integral part of democracy. This is a good decision but we must remain vigilant against such attacks.”
In July, Nepal’s Khadga Prasad Sharma Oli, 72, was sworn in as prime minister after his Communist party formed a coalition government with the centre-left Nepali Congress, shifting power to the country’s often-volatile parliament.
TikTok, owned by Beijing-based Bytedance, is one of the world’s most popular social media platforms, but several countries have sought to tighten controls on social media due to its potential influence.
The United States recently sued TikTok, saying it put the safety of millions of children at risk by collecting personal data of children without parental permission.
TikTok is also battling a US law that calls for its Chinese parent company Bytedance to sell the video platform or else face a nationwide ban on the app.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
