Nepal’s anti-corruption protests led by Gen Z activists toppled the KP Sharma Oli government. Now, Gen Z is using the US-based social media app Discord to decide on the country’s next leader.
Nepal is in a period of turmoil. After Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli’s government banned 26 social media apps including Instagram and Facebook, Gen Z protestors took to the streets. The protests soon turned violent, with at least 51 dead.
Nepal’s youth protesters say they want to put an end to years of alleged corruption in the country’s governance. With Oli out and no faith in other political leaders, Gen Z is at a crossroads to decide their next leader. This is where the protestors are flocking to the online platform Discord.
Discord was launched in May 2015 as a social platform by co-founders Jason Citron, and Stanislav Vishnevskiy. Both Citron and Vishnevskiy had created social platforms for gamers before and hoped to create a chat service that would not hamper performance while playing games.
During Discord’s early days, the platform focused on allowing users to communicate with their friends without exiting a game. By the end of 2016, Discord had more than 25 million users.
The platform exploded in popularity during the pandemic, particularly amongst Gen Z. Users did not just stick to using the app while gaming. Rather, more and more Discord servers were created based on various topics of interest.
The app now calls itself a communication platform where users can engage in discussions on servers, through various channels. There are also options for screen sharing, streaming as well as moderation tools.
A Discord server is a large community space where users can gather and set up multiple channels to communicate. The channels could be in text, audio, or even video. The user limit on a Discord server can be as high as 5,00,000 by default.
However, only 2,50,000 users can be active on a server at any given time.
How did Gen Z protestors use Discord?
Gen Z protestors have used Discord to manage their demonstrations. Following Oli’s resignation, the members used the Youth Against Corruption Discord server to decide their next leader.
As shown by India Today’s OSINT team, the Youth Against Corruption server has over 1,30,000 members. There is no real way to verify the location of these members.
The server held multiple polls to decide on Nepal’s next leader, with users voting as per their choice. However, there was no way to verify that all users in the voting process were actually from Nepal.
India Today’s OSINT team report demonstrated that any person outside of Nepal can vote as well.
By Wednesday, September 10, the server had seemingly reached a consensus on Nepal’s next leader. Sushila Karki, Nepal’s former chief justice, was chosen by the Discord server.
According to South China Morning Post, 7,713 votes were cast before Karki hit 50%. She met Nepal’s president, Ram Chandra Poudel, and Army chief, Gen. Ashok Raj Sigdel, the following day.
Shaswot Lamichhane, a channel moderator, told the New York Times that the voting was meant to only suggest an interim leader who could oversee elections.
Why did Gen Z protestors use Discord?
On the surface, not many are familiar with Discord, particularly millennials. However, for Gen Z, it is a convenient and comfortable platform. There are no endless feeds of content, unlike Instagram or X (formerly Twitter). There are many more features available than in a messaging platform like WhatsApp.
Discord servers can allow for incredibly large groups of users to deliberate and discuss, something that becomes crucial during mass movements.
