No, Nepal Is Not Banning TikTok Again, Viral Video Is AI-Generated

Claim
TikTok will be banned in Nepal from August 17, 2025.
Fact
Viral video is AI-generated.

A video claiming that TikTOk will be banned again in Nepal from Bhadra 1, 2082 BS (17 August, 2025) is going viral on TikTok.

The video is going viral in the wake of Nepal government’s decision to ban the messaging app Telegram owing to a rise in online fraud and money laundering.

In this context, TikTok user @dahaljayaram posted an eight-second news clip about the government decision to ban TikTok in Nepal. Text superimposed on the video reads, “Nepali Devanagari, from Bhadra 1 TikTok will be banned in Nepal.” A news anchor says, “From Bhadra 1, TikTok will be banned again in Nepal. The government has decided this due to misuse of social media and public complaints.”

The video has garnered 21.7k likes, 16.2k users have liked it and 1427 people have commented until the last count. 

The archived version of the TikTok video can be seen here.
Newschecker found the claim to be false.

Fact Check /Verification

To check the authenticity of the claim, Newschecker looked up the website of Nepal’s Ministry of Information and Communications. On checking the website, we did not find any notice or decision to ban TikTok in Nepal.

We then ran a key word search for ‘TikTok ban in Nepal’. The search led us to several articles (See here, here & here) regarding the Nepal government lifting the TikTok ban in Nepal. On checking an article, dated August 22, 2024, published on Setopati online, we found that the Cabinet decided to lift the ban that came into effect after the erstwhile Cabinet led by Pushpa Kamal Dahal on November 13, 2023 decided to ban the video-sharing app in Nepal citing disruption of social harmony.

However, we didn’t find any other credible reports that the Nepal government is considering banning TikTok again.

We, then, reached out to the information officer at the Ministry of Information and Communications, Rabindra Prasad Poudyal, who confirmed that there is no such decision to ban TikTok in Nepal again.

Further, we downloaded the video and checked it by using AI detection tool Hive Moderation which indicated that the video is 99 percent likely to contain deepfake content.

We also checked a screen grab from the viral video by using AI detection tool ‘WasitAI” which confidently confirmed that the image is generated by using AI. 

Thus, our findings clearly indicated that the viral video is false and generated by using AI.

Conclusion

No, Nepal government has not decided to ban TikTok from August 17. The viral video is AI-generated.

Result: False

Sources
Kathmandu Post , July 18
Setopati , Aug 22, 2024
Direct contact with under secretary at the Ministry of Information and Communications

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