What began as angry posts about politicians’ elite lifestyle on Instagram has, within days, toppled the Prime Minister and thrust Nepal into political upheaval. At the heart of this extraordinary week has been one constant – technology. Earlier this week, tens of thousands of young Nepal’s citizens, most in their 20s, poured into Kathmandu to rally against corruption and demand an end to a government ban on Facebook, YouTube and other popular apps, which was imposed a week before these protests erupted. The youth has, undoubtedly, moved and highlighted the dissatisfaction quickly and hence, the protests spread like wildfire.
By nightfall, at least 19 demonstrators had been killed in a police crackdown. Protestors set parliament alight, KP Sharma Oli resigned as Prime Minister, and the army rolled onto the streets. While all of this took place in just a couple of days, reports have it that the Nepali youth resided on other communication channels like Discord and Bitchat, rather than the more popular ones like Instagram, X and WhatsApp.
According to the media reports, the uprising roots of the protest were traced to digital resistance. Days before the rallies, thousands downloaded VPNs to slip past government firewalls. Others flocked to Bitchat, a Bluetooth-based messaging app created by Jack Dorsey, which allows offline, encrypted communication.
What is Bitchat?
Much of the buzz around this revolt has centred on Bitchat. Launched in July 2025, Jack Dorsey’s messaging application is an offline texting app that doesn’t rely on an internet connection and runs using Bluetooth. If the intended recipient isn’t nearby, the message “hops” device to device until it finds its target. Crucially, the messages are end-to-end encrypted, meaning only the sender and final recipient can read them.
For protesters fearful of an internet blackout, Bitchat was a lifeline. Unlike WhatsApp or Telegram, it doesn’t rely on central servers, SIM cards or email addresses. As crowds moved through Kathmandu’s streets, the app quietly stitched their devices together into a living, mobile web of communication.
It is a striking image. A generation raised on memes and multiplayer games now using the same digital tools to decide the political fate of a country.
Discord as a debating chamber
As bricks were still smouldering in Kathmandu, young activists turned to the American chat app Discord to decide what came next. One server alone attracted more than 1,45,000 members, debating feverishly over an interim leader. Many backed Sushila Karki, the 73-year-old former chief justice.
Nepal’s uprising is the latest reminder of how digital tools have transformed protest movements. But here, the scale was breathtaking, hashtags stoking outrage, VPNs breaching censors, Discord hosting constitutional debates, and mesh networks keeping demonstrators linked even when the state tried to silence them.
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