By Venus Upadhayaya

The global gig economy employs nearly 200 million people through digital platform-based companies like Uber, Food Panda, Zomato, Oyo etc. It’s also to be noted that a lot of gig work silently happens on social media platforms like WhatsApp, WeChat and Facebook and that’s where the gig economy gets linked to public unrest whenever there’s a social media ban.

So when Nepal banned 26 social media platforms on September 4 after a week’s ultimatum, it was not just about freedom of speech and press freedom, it was also about a loss of livelihood and jobs, more so in a country where 6.7 percent of the national GDP comes from tourism, i.e. over two billion USD. This means the protests were also indicative of how the gig job sector has silently taken root in the country.

The tourism industry in the Himalayan nation was one of the first of all industries to start cashing on the increasing social media reach in the country, according to Nepal Economic Forum.

This means that Nepal’s tourism gig economy is already substantial. This is also supported by several reports on the devastating impact of the social media ban. “For us, social media used to be a very popular tool for communication. That’s now gone, and it’s a nightmare-like situation,” Jiban Ghimire, managing director of Shangri-La Nepal Trek told the New York Times after the protests erupted.

“No communication, no business.”

Strangely, while the social media ban is identified as the trigger for the protests and analysts have eagerly discussed how algorithms impacted public sentiment and caused social unrest, there’s an absolute lack of analysis on how social media based gig economy could actually be a significant reason.

This lack of identification and understanding about the gig economy in developing countries like Nepal will become a handicap for lawmakers and will disable them from futuristic policy making. It’s thus important to understand how the gig economy is burgeoning in South Asia with the increasing reach of social media.

Unorganized Sector, Gig Economy and Public Sentiment

The “Gig Economy” or “Sharing Economy”–is also referred to as the peer-to-peer or the “collaborative-consumption” or “on-demand” economy. It is denoted by non-permanent and flexible freelancing jobs–largely facilitated by an online platform that acts as a connection between the service provider and the consumers. It can be called a third front for it’s not only transforming the way we work but also significantly impacting the way we live across the world.

The gig economy is largely unorganized or semi-organized which means that gig workers are mostly daily wagers relying on digital spaces for finding jobs or for providing services–a lot of them operate from home based enterprises and don’t have employer provided social security. In many cases they are self-employed through social media like in the case of small time tour operators and individual tourist guides.

When social media stopped working, the tourism industry was the first to be impacted in picturesque Nepal. With tourism impacted, all the other allied unorganized jobs like those in cafes, eateries and transporters were also impacted. In this case the ban’s impact on tourism is greatly reported, however a lot associated has gone unidentified and unreported.

Nata Travel and Adventures Pvt. Ltd, a Kathmandu based travel agency has said in a blog post on September 6 that the impact of the ban was “immediate and profound.”

“80% of our bookings used to come from Instagram DMs or TikTok videos,” said a representative from a Thamel-based trekking company, according to the blog post. Thamel is a commercial neighbourhood in Kathmandu.

Thus when the Nepali policy makers start to reflect on the protests and how it was impacted by the social media ban they can’t stop at just policy innovation or policy control for Facebook, Instagram, WeChat and TikTok.

They need to understand how social media is propelling a gig economy in families and neighbourhoods across Nepal. They need to go beyond tourism and work on this holistically including making laws more friendly towards the growth of their gig economy.

As Sara Pradhan wrote for the Nepal Economic Forum in an article last year, “As new jobs and opportunities emerge, the government needs to modify and amend laws that don’t hinder employment opportunities or innovation and that keep up with the changing business landscape.“

“Nepal can also learn by looking at its neighboring countries, India and Bangladesh, and their laws surrounding the gig economy such as the legal classification of workers, job benefits and mandates to ensure workers are not being exploited, and other issues.”

Venus Upadhayaya is a MOFA 2025 Taiwan Fellow and a Visiting Scholar at National Chung Hsing University, Taichung in Central Taiwan. Her doctoral research work is on ‘Perspectives on India’s Unorganized Sector.’