Nepal lifts TikTok ban after blocking app over ‘social harmony’ concerns
Al Jazeera
Move comes weeks after Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli was sworn into office following collapse of previous government.
Nepal has lifted its ban on TikTok less than a year after blocking the Chinese-owned application out of its stated concern for “social harmony”.
Minister for Communication and Information Technology Prithvi Subba Gurung announced the decision on Thursday following a cabinet meeting.
The move comes after Prime Minister Khadga Prasad Sharma Oli, who was sworn in last month after the collapse of the previous coalition government, issued a directive calling for the equal treatment of all social networking platforms, state-run National News Agency reported.
Al Jazeera understands that the decision was made after TikTok, owned by Beijing-based ByteDance, communicated with the Nepalese government in recent weeks to assure it that it would abide by all legal requirements, promote digital safety, and establish a designated channel for content-related requests from authorities.
TikTok said it was pleased to see the ban lifted.
