Youth seethe at overnight social media ban in Nepal

With access to 26 major platforms cut off overnight, thousands of young Nepalis across the country have called for a protest Monday against what they said was a “digitally repressive” move by the government in Kathmandu. Demonstrations are expected to begin at 9am, with organisers calling the blackout a “direct assault on speech, work and connectivity”.

Many users, particularly in urban areas, scrambled for VPNs — virtual private networks that became lifelines to a world that had abruptly become inaccessible. By midday, Google Trends showed searches for “VPN for Nepal” had surged by more than 400% overnight. Proxy browsers, DNS tweaks and foreign eSIMs also became part of the workaround toolkit.