At 2:47 pm on 4 September 2025, Nepal’s government severed access to six major social media platforms. Within 72 hours, parliament was in turmoil, the prime minister had resigned, and tens of thousands of young citizens had taken to the streets. What began as a bid to silence dissent spiraled into a nationwide rebellion.
This dramatic chain of events was not unique. Across South Asia, local grievances have transformed into mass movements with astonishing speed. From Nepal and Pakistan to Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Indonesia, digital networks have acted as accelerants, turning sparks of anger into regional infernos. Scholars now describe this as digital contagion, a process where algorithms amplify emotionally charged content until protest movements spread like viruses.
Nepal’s social media blackout
Nepal’s uprising was sparked by the decision to ban Facebook, YouTube, TikTok, X, WhatsApp and Discord under the banner of national security. The move was intended to stifle online criticism of corruption and political stagnation. Instead, it inflamed public opinion, especially among young people already facing 20 per cent unemployment and limited opportunities for upward mobility.
For many Nepalese, the blackout represented a symbolic attack on freedom. University students were among the first to mobilise, uploading protest footage to VPN-enabled platforms and sharing satirical memes that ridiculed the government. The crackdown, rather than silencing dissent, created an urgent sense of solidarity. In less than a week, youth organisations transformed digital frustration into physical gatherings that overwhelmed police barricades in Kathmandu.
Pakistan’s volatile mix of politics and military power
Pakistan’s unrest followed the arrest of former prime minister on corruption charges in May 2023. His supporters believed the move was orchestrated by the military to eliminate a popular rival. The arrest came on the heels of repeated internet shutdowns and televised blackouts designed to suppress pro-Khan sentiment.
What distinguished the protests in Pakistan was the role of the diaspora. Pakistani communities in Europe and the Gulf circulated videos of police violence on WhatsApp, feeding a cycle of outrage at home. Digital connectivity blurred national borders. Baloch activists, long marginalised by the state, saw an opening to merge their grievances over human rights abuses with the wider pro-democracy wave. This convergence was amplified by algorithms that prioritised highly engaging, anger-driven content.
Bangladesh and the quota controversy
Bangladesh’s crisis stemmed from a June 2024 Supreme Court ruling that reinstated a 56 per cent job quota in the civil service, including 30 per cent for descendants of 1971 war veterans. For students facing intense competition in a shrinking economy, the decision was seen as unjust.
When the then Prime Minister dismissed the protesters as “razakars”, a term associated with wartime collaborators, outrage exploded online. Students flooded Facebook with posts and live streams, framing the remark as an insult to an entire generation. The digital echo chamber reinforced a collective identity among young people, convincing them that the struggle was about dignity as much as jobs.
Economic insecurity deepened the crisis. With graduate unemployment high and wages stagnant, many saw the quota as another mechanism for political favouritism. The protests spread rapidly from campus sit-ins to nationwide strikes, echoing movements across the region.
Sri Lanka and the weight of economic collapse
In Sri Lanka, discontent was brewing long before 2025. A devastating economic crisis, rooted in unwise tax cuts, a sudden fertiliser ban, and the collapse of foreign reserves, left the country short of essentials. By mid-2022, inflation had surpassed 50 per cent, while electricity blackouts lasted up to 12 hours a day.
The Aragalaya movement brought thousands onto the streets, demanding the resignation of President Gotabaya Rajapaksa. Social media became the vehicle for coordination, with hashtags such as #GoHomeGota crossing platforms and languages. Viral videos of citizens storming the presidential palace spread globally within minutes, reinforcing the belief that collective action could achieve tangible change.
The sense of injustice was sharpened by widening inequality. While elites retained access to luxury goods and privileges, ordinary citizens queued for petrol and medicine. This visible disparity was algorithmically amplified, ensuring that every smartphone became a window into inequality.
Indonesia and the outrage at elite privilege
Indonesia’s protests erupted after parliament approved generous housing allowances for MPs, worth nearly ten times the Jakarta minimum wage. The decision, announced on 15 August 2025, was widely condemned as another example of political elites enriching themselves at the expense of ordinary citizens.
Tensions escalated when a delivery driver, was killed by an armoured police vehicle during early demonstrations. His death became a rallying cry for labour rights, amplified through TikTok videos and viral hashtags. Riders, students and trade unions found common cause in challenging economic hardship and police violence.
The protests revealed how algorithms thrive on symbolic figures. The image of the driver circulated in countless memes and videos, turning him into a martyr for economic justice. Online networks translated individual tragedy into collective mobilisation, with demonstrations spreading across multiple cities within days.
How contagion spreads through algorithms
Traditional theories of protest described mobilisation as slow, requiring careful organisation and word-of-mouth recruitment. Digital contagion moves at the speed of algorithms. Three interlocking dynamics explain why South Asia’s uprisings spread so rapidly.
First, complex contagion theory shows that individuals require multiple exposures from different contacts before they act. In Spain’s 2011 protests, studies found that most participants only joined once about half of their online peers had already done so. In South Asia, students in Nepal repeatedly saw posts ridiculing corruption, while Pakistanis received successive WhatsApp forwards about Imran Khan’s trial. Each repeated exposure chipped away at hesitation until collective momentum was irresistible.
Second, algorithmic amplification ensured that the most emotionally charged content dominated feeds. Platforms reward posts that generate engagement. Videos of police brutality or lavish lifestyles among elites spread quickly, while neutral reports struggled for visibility. Algorithms also compress content into short windows, creating urgency and fear of missing out. Viral hashtags such as #GoHomeGota and #GoHomeGen replicated rapidly, becoming both slogans and recruitment tools.
Third, network bridges allowed movements to cross borders. Diaspora communities in Pakistan, student unions in Nepal, and YouTube influencers in Sri Lanka all acted as connectors. These bridge ties meant that strategies and narratives leapt from one national context to another, producing regional resonance.
The psychology of mass mobilisation
Protest movements are not only about networks but also about emotions. Social psychologists emphasise four drivers of collective action: relative deprivation, collective efficacy, moral outrage and identity fusion.
Relative deprivation refers to the perception of unfairness. In every case, young people compared their limited prospects with the privileges of political elites. Collective efficacy describes the belief that joint action can succeed. Viral videos showing mass rallies gave people confidence that they were part of a winning struggle.
Moral outrage proved especially contagious. Research shows that anger-laden content is six times more likely to be shared than neutral material. Clips of corruption or violent crackdowns spread faster than any official rebuttal. Identity fusion, where individual and group identities merge, was visible in Bangladesh’s student protests and Indonesia’s labour movements. In these cases, participants felt bound together so tightly that they were willing to risk arrest or violence.
A regional crisis with global implications
The common denominator in these movements was not only social media but also economic vulnerability. Nepalese youth faced a stagnant economy, Pakistanis battled rising inflation, Bangladeshis feared nepotism in jobs, Sri Lankans endured shortages, and Indonesians resented rising living costs. Digital contagion amplified grievances, but the material basis of unrest lay in economic inequality.
The consequences go beyond South Asia. Platforms headquartered in Silicon Valley and Beijing designed algorithms to maximise engagement, not manage political fallout. Yet their influence is reshaping fragile democracies. The protests raise questions about corporate responsibility and governance in the digital age.
Can regulation tame algorithms without silencing dissent? Should governments collaborate across borders to address digital contagion? What role should technology companies play in societies where their tools have become central to political life?
Conclusion
The uprisings in Nepal, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Indonesia reveal how local grievances can become regional conflagrations when fuelled by algorithms. Digital contagion has altered the very rhythm of protest, turning slow organising into rapid cascades. At the heart of these movements lie economic crises and widening inequality, made visible and shareable through viral networks.
South Asia’s protests are no longer incubated in secret meetings or activist circles. They are coded into algorithms that reward outrage and accelerate mobilisation. Until societies confront the dual pressures of economic hardship and algorithmic amplification, the next viral uprising is only a click away.
Reference
Brady, W. J., Wills, J. A., Jost, J. T., Tucker, J. A., & Van Bavel, J. J. (2017). Emotion shapes the diffusion of moralized content in social networks. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 114(28), 7313-7318. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1618923114
González-Bailón, S., Borge-Holthoefer, J., Rivero, A., & Moreno, Y. (2011). The dynamics of protest recruitment through an online network. Scientific reports, 1(1), 1-7. https://doi.org/10.1038/srep00197
Tredinnick, L., & Laybats, C. (2025). Contagion: The chaos of the digital ether. Business Information Review, 42(1), 6-9. https://doi.org/10.1177/026638212513225
