How is social media rewriting the playbook of political participation?

In Nepal, Discord replaced voting polls in electing the first female prime minister in history, Sushila Karki. But can social media lead a country?

Digital democracy is defined by the Oxford Dictionary of Social Media as “the use of computer-mediated communication to enhance participatory democracy and political engagement.” While it is still in incipient phases, it is rapidly reshaping various aspects of our political life. Due to its unexplored novelty, the rising horizons of digital political participation represent both an opportunity and a risk for flawed democracies and hybrid regimes, especially in the context of power vacuums left behind by boom-bust cycle protests.

Students have historically been instrumental in driving political change and funneling societal frustrations, anger, and disappointment into ample social movements. Intuitively, it does not come as a surprise that Gen Z is the face of the cross-national protest wave in South and Southeast Asia. Against the backdrop of rising wealth inequality, corruption, youth unemployment, and state brutality, young people mobilized themselves through social media and took their complaints to the streets. In Indonesia, protests erupted after 21-year-old delivery driver Affan Kurniawan was run over and murdered by elite paramilitary police, voicing grievances of economic hardship, job legislation, and inequality. Six million Nepali live under the poverty rate, while politicians’ children flood social media with pictures of their lavish lifestyle. This and the government digital ban were the fuse that lit the fire and led to nationwide deadly protests against corruption and job insecurity. In the Philippines, similar injustices fueled collective action after it was alleged billions of dollars were fraudulently used for flood relief projects. It echoes Bangladeshi youth protests in 2024 in the wake of high unemployment and preferential quota system reform for government jobs. Similarly with Sri Lanka in 2022, after years of economic mismanagement led the country to default on its international debt for the first time in history and protesters overturned the decades-long rule of the Rajapaksa clan.

The red string tying these waves of protests together is the central role of social media in collective mobilization, and information-sharing. Writing for the New York Times, Meena Kandasamy frames the protests as an “Arab Spring reboot” —a clear parallel drawn for good reason. The initial Arab Spring was “like one giant Woodstock… Joyful anarchy empowered by internet connectivity,” says Hicham Alaoui, an associate at Weatherhead Center for International Affairs. Yet, while the mass protests of the 2010s toppled several autocratic governments and have brought vast transformations to the political scene since, they have mostly failed to deliver on the hopeful promise for liberalization and successfully transition to democracies. That is in part because the power vacuums left behind by overturned governments and lack of political strategies to rebuild and consolidate institutions led to increased secular-religious polarization and fear of state collapse. Many fear the landscape of South Asian social movements is likely to meet a similar fate without reliable alternative channels for youth to channel their anger and concrete follow-up plans to build on the current momentum of unity and civil solidarity.

Experts believe that protests led by social media channels are efficient in creating publicity around the social cause or movement, but lack the substance necessary to drive effective political change. But are all social media-driven movements doomed to fall short in their aims? The way political participation is shaped and collective action is performed is undeniably changing with technology-driven forms of communications rapidly amending traditional characteristics of political upheavals. As mentioned, in Nepal, Thousands of Gen Z protesters gathered on Discord after uprooting the old government to elect the new prime minister, Sushila Karki, a premier in electoral history. Moreover, some young protesters used AI platforms like ChatGPT, Grok, DeepSeek and Veed to create artificially generated video content about corruption and the wealthy lifestyle of elitist children, nicknamed “nepo kids,” raising questions about ethical practices, risk exposure to ill-intended actors, and the true size and scope of collective mobilization.

For many young people in South and Southeast Asia, it seems that leftist organizations are not a viable alternative, nor do they find the traditional charismatic leader typology appealing. Instead, they seem to prefer a more egalitarian approach channeling their anger, frustration, and anxieties. This is achieved through social media-driven political upheavals, directed towards an elitist state apparatus they believe failed them and the daily hardships under which millions must survive. So, can we replace political institutions with social media? Unclear and improbable for the immediate future. But one thing is for sure: the old order is changing, the younger generation has picked up its forks, and it would be foolish for those in power to ignore the voices of the youth. Social media is changing the rules of political participation and it looks like Gen Z is leading the board.

Cover Image: A youngster shouts slogans during the massive anti-government protests in Kathmandu. Reuters