Kathmandu, Dec 16: A daylong conference dwelt on urgency of building digital trust to secure human rights, freedom of expression and safety online.
The Digital Rights Festival-2025 was held in the federal capital under the theme of ‘building trust in the digital age’.
Addressing the inaugural session of the festival, Justice at Supreme Court, Dr Nahakul Subedi, viewed issues of digital rights are not merely related to technology but to the society and the state.
“The initiatives from state side help cope with problems and challenges. Wise use of digital spheres is imperative to leverage technology going beyond the convenience it creates,”
he said, reminding that digital rights are not intangible but they are like fundamental rights- equality and freedoms- guaranteed by the constitution.
United Nations Resident Coordinator in Nepal, Hanaa Singer-Hamdy, said a proper use of digital rights helps build society based on morality and responsibility. She argued that digital age help Republic thrive.
As a key note speaker Prof Dr Rohan Samarajiva shared the experience of Sri Lanka that the country had also made efforts to shutdown internet, leading to the protest in April 2022. However, the internet shutdown had to be lifted quickly.
A wise regulation is needed to regulate internet and digital activities rather than adopting blanket approach, according to him.
“Trust is critical for smooth functioning of a society, so is the case for digital sphere,” Samarajiva said, adding that information disorder is the ill effect of digital information. The digital platforms play on user generated contents which are further tweaked by the algorithms, he said, reminding that Facebook and X have different parameters of content regulation.
He stressed that law alone is not the solution to viral trend- speedy dissemination of information. Founder of Freedom Forum and Chairperson of the Programme, Taranath Dahal, said the Gen Z movement was occurred in Nepal due to ban the government imposed on digital rights. Rather than the ban and restrictive measures, state can gradually take measures for regulation of digital platforms that, he argued, would strike a balance between the exercise of digital rights and tech downsides. “Creating a healthy information ecosystem requires multi-stakeholders’ approach,” he underscored.
The festival features different sessions focusing human rights protection in the digital age, algorithmic transparency and platform governance, development of artificial intelligence policy in Nepal, information integrity and digital literacy, digital challenges and way forward.
The event is organized by Digital Freedoms Coalition where dozens of organizations including Freedom Forum and Internet Governance Institute are associated. #nepal #rss
