Guwahati: A cabinet meeting held in Kathmandu on Monday decided to ban Chinese video-sharing social media app TikTok over rising hate speeches and security threats.
According to government spokesperson and Minister for Communication and Information Technology, Rekha Sharma, Monday’s Cabinet meeting decided to prohibit TikTok’s use.
The decision to ban TikTok will be implemented through the Ministry of Communication and IT, she said.
A Cabinet meeting on Thursday made it mandatory for social media sites such as Facebook, X (formerly Twitter), TikTok and YouTube, among others, to open their liaison offices in Nepal.
Although freedom of expression is a basic right, a large section of society has criticised TikTok for encouraging a tendency of hate speech, the government said. In the past four years, 1,647 cases of cybercrime have been reported on the video-sharing app, the report said.
However, Nepali Congress General Secretary Gagan Thapa expressed reservations about the decision.
“The government’s decision to ban Tiktok is wrong; the government should regulate the social media site,” ruling party leader Mr. Thapa said on X.
“The government’s decision should be rectified as it violates freedom of expression and individual freedom,” he pointed out.
TikTok is banned in many countries as it violates many security concerns across those nations. Some of the countries that have already banned this Chinese app are India, the U.S., the European Union and the U.K.