Nepal picks a new prime minister on a discord server days after social media ban
13 comments
·September 13, 2025fivestones
This also makes me wonder what could be done to make discord (or something similar) a better venue for direct democracy. I know the circumstances in Nepal were exceptional, but I wonder if we will see other countries experiment with Discord for similar purposes. It seems like in Nepal they have essentially used it as a caucus, and I wonder if this could be shaped into a better way to elect leaders (or even legislate directly) than what most of the world is doing.
My wife and I were talking about this today and we thought it's possible that what has just happened in Nepal is at least in some sense the most democratic thing any country has ever done.
perihelions
> "in some sense the most democratic thing any country has ever done"
How is one faction holding an internal vote to impose rule on the rest of the people, who have no representation, anything at all like a democracy?
buzzin__
So, they modeled it after the US Supreme Court?
nerdright
Blockchain is well suited for this. Polymarket really proved that blockchain can be useful beyond crypto, especially when trust is at stake.
stavros
I agree, but I don't know if a closed platform could ever be suitable for this.
sinuhe69
Liquid democracy is a total viable platform. But Discord is better in so far as it can be used for all kinds of things and conversations, not just for voting or debates.
userbinator
An IRC server or even a mailing list seems far better suited to the purpose than a notoriously closed and proprietary platform.
3np
Seems a bit vulnerable to subversion of the host (and/or its government) once they decide to pay attention (or even through negligence; imagine a minister being banned because of some ML false-positive).
If the format is to be sustainable, they will need to find or found a different platform.
fivestones
I thought it was super ironic that after the government of Nepal banned almost all social media platforms last week, this week the Gen Z protesters who overthrew the government used one of those platforms, discord, to choose a new prime minister.
The person they picked is 73 year old Sushila Karki, who used to be a Cheif justice of the Supreme Court until she retired at age 65, and is the only woman to have ever held that position. She is also now the first and only female to run the country. The protests that overthrew the Nepali government this past week were started to protest corruption in government, and Karki is known for being fiercely against corruption as a judge. She was sworn in on Friday. Good luck to her. https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c179qne0zw0o
FilosofumRex
Another color revolution by the CIA, to keep Nepal bound to the Western eco system and hostile to China.
It was Discord that changed the government, it was the looting and burning down of government building by well funded and organized mobs.
kryptiskt
It's kind of ironic that a nominally communistic government doesn't believe that the people have agency to act on their own, guess it reflects their own fears. I hope Xi lies sleepless at night worrying about the Chinese people getting rid of him.
Gift link:
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/11/world/asia/nepal-protest-...