In the first week of September 2025, Nepal staged one of the fastest political collapses in recent memory. A government decision abruptly suspended about two dozen social media platforms — from Facebook and X to YouTube and Snapchat — for allegedly failing to register under new rules. Within hours, Kathmandu’s streets began to buzz, then swell. By the week’s end, the prime minister was gone.

The speed of the government’s downfall startled observers of South Asian politics, where regimes usually decay through slow erosion. This was more than a protest against censorship. Nepal’s collapse was networked and distinctly a generational refusal.

In a country where the median age is just 25, social media platforms are not luxuries. They are the foundation of economic and personal life: conduits

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