Blocking Signal or Reddit sounds bizarre for a civilized democratic country. What sense can that make other than denying people the right for privacy of personal communications or uncensored information access? I am very surprised Nepal goes this way.

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alephnerd 4 days ago | parent | next [-]

> democratic country

Nepal is classified as a Hybrid Regime [0] in democracy rankings.

Following the end of the civil war, power has largely consolidated amongst 3 players - KP Sharma Oli, Sher Bahadur Deuba, and Prachanda - who play a game of musical chairs.

Ofc, both China and India are constantly interfering in Nepali politics and building random coalitions with permutations of these three along with smaller parties.

Whenever India feels Nepal is leaning too pro-China, some crisis happens, and whenever China feels Nepal is leaning to pro-India, some crisis also happens.

Indian state politics also plays a role, because the states of Sikkim, Uttarakhand, Bihar, and Uttar Pradesh have significant ethnic ties in Nepal (eg. Bihar's CM Nitish Kumar's family are Maithili with family ties across the borders, and his opponent Lalu Prasad Yadav has backed Yadav political movements in Nepal as well; UP's CM Yogi Adityanath is a Garhwali Rajput who used to lead a Hindu sect that was patronized by the Nepali royal family and still has significant pull in Nepal; and Sikkim's former CM Pawan Kumar Chamling was part of a ethno-tribal movement amongst Janjatis/Tibeto-Burman tribals who were at the bottom rung of the Nepal during it's monarchical rule; KP Sharma Oli grew up in a village barely 20 miles from Naxalbari right when the Naxalite/Maoist insurgency began in West Bengal), which adds another layer of complexity, because state level politics often leaks across both Nepal and India.

[0] - https://www.eiu.com/n/campaigns/democracy-index-2024/

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skinnymuch 4 days ago | parent [-]

I’m assuming that ranking has countries like China as not democratic while countries like the US as democratic. When most people in China are happy with their govt/they correctly believe the govt is working in their interest. Meanwhile the majority in America are usually not happy with their current regimes and most certainly the govt does not represent the people.

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alephnerd 4 days ago | parent | next [-]

> while countries like the US as democratic

America is ranked as a flawed democracy within the EIU - just like Israel, South Korea, and Italy - which I would say is a fairly accurate take about the state of American democracy.

> When most people in China

It's hard to tell whether Chinese think one way or the other, as these kinds of polls are tightly held. That said, protests are fairly common in China, and the rate of labor unrest within China has risen dramatically compared to the past 10 years [0]

[0] - https://labourreview.org/strike-wave-china/

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kevin_thibedeau 4 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> When most people in China are happy with their govt

You don't seem to have seen the videos of people being shoved into vans when they try to exercise their right to lodge grievances about government corruption.

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fragmede 4 days ago | parent | next [-]

I agree, what ICE is doing in LA is pretty shameful!

	▲	RestlessMind 4 days ago \| parent [-]
		The difference is that people are protesting against ICE, writing op-eds openly across various forms of media and a prominent governor is trolling Federal govt's actions in public. Good luck trying to do any of that in China. US and other democratic societies may have warts, but there is a huge gap between those systems and China.

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xnyan 4 days ago | parent | prev [-]

Whereas in the US, masked government goons have never thrown people in unmarked vans /s.

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titototititi 4 days ago | parent | prev [-]

>most people in China are happy with their govt/they correctly believe the govt is working in their interest

we can't complain ;)

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skinnymuch 4 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

While unequal exchange and western hegemony exists, it always makes sense to not want a global south society to be using western companies like Reddit

	▲	alephnerd 4 days ago \| parent \| next [-]
		Extremely popular Nepali platforms like Hamro Patro were banned as well, as was Zalo from the Socialist Republic of Vietnam.
	▲	qwerty456127 4 days ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		This is a duplicate comment.

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stainablesteel 4 days ago | parent | prev [-]

maybe this is odd but i just have to ask, do you consider reddit usage to be the sign of a civilized democracy?

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qwerty456127 4 days ago | parent | next [-]

I consider banning it uncharacteristic to such. I can hardly consider a state where people are not allowed to access Reddit (as well as HN, Wikipedia or StackExchange) freely and anonymously a healthy civilized democracy. It can still be a very civilized society in general but tightening control on the people like this indicates the government is going slippery slope.

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newyankee 4 days ago | parent | next [-]

Many national subreddits are taken over by power hungry mods who now have behind the scene help from nation-states. Despite ample evidence and other subreddits highlighting consistent systemic biases there is no way to remove mods or change policies. I understand it is difficult to make it completely unbiased as subjectivity and a lot of other factors will influence what counts are right or wrong in that scenario, and mods are not even paid either. But then this always made it ripe for influence from other areas as a part of information warfare and here we are with the outcome

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skinnymuch 4 days ago | parent | prev [-]

I’d think it doesn’t specifically mean anything for civilized or democracy or slippery slope to block a bunch of western sites.

	▲	qwerty456127 4 days ago \| parent [-]
		The grammar is our enemy here. Blocking a website may be Okay. Blocking a person willing to access it is not.

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AdrianB1 4 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Reddit, civilized and democracy are not strongly correlated. Free speech and civilized, they are.

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skirge 4 days ago | parent | prev [-]

reddit makes no harm, thus there is no reason to block it.

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skinnymuch 4 days ago | parent [-]

Reddit is a western American site while western hegemony exists. There’s always a reason for the global south to block western sites/companies

	▲	qwerty456127 4 days ago \| parent \| next [-]
		Sure - the reason is the want more control over their people, they want to surveil them (hence blocking Signal), they want them to only read or express "correct" texts and prevent them from participating in open loosely-moderated discussions (hence blocking Reddit).
	▲	int_19h 4 days ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		Wouldn't want comrades to get cooties from reading icky things?