It blew up from almost nowhere, gained gale force in no time, and swept away the political structures erected over the last two decades, like straws in a wildfire. On September 4, the Nepal government led by Prime Minister K.P. Sharma Oli shut down 26 social media platforms after giving them a week, from August 28, to register locally to bring them under the purview of Nepali laws. They did not comply, so the government ordered their shutdown. Four days later, thousands of people, many of them st