In recent years, youth-led protests over corruption and economic policy have shaken several countries across Asia with substantial destabilising effects. Nepal’s government was toppled in early September and Indonesia’s government faced serious pressure, echoing the wave of protests that led to the removal of leaders in Sri Lanka and Bangladesh in 2022 and 2024. But these protests share more than their political motives - they’ve been driven by digitally literate Gen Z activists using social media to organise.
Young people across the region used platforms such as Discord, Reddit and TikTok not only to mobilise masses but to combat misinformation, which sets these movements apart from those of other generations. Powerful yet often leaderless, these grassroots movements can gain momentum quickly without the need to draw on the organisation and resources from established political parties or media which is often controlled or censored by governments at times of political unrest. Students have been at the forefront of protests in Indonesia since February, taking to the streets to demand higher wages and lowertaxes,encouraged by Muzammil Ihsan, head of Indonesia’s largest student union, who has called on more students to join the demonstrations.
Some children still in school uniform were also spotted among the crowd. “I cannot accept that the taxes they paid are being used to support people who treat the lives of their fellow citizens as worthless,” said one student protestor in Jakarta Demonstrations in Indonesia escalated on August 28th after the death of motorcycle taxi driver Affan Kurniawan who was run over by a police vehicle at a protest in Jakarta. The unrest became not just about cost of living and unemployment but also about police violence and calls for legal consequences for the officers involved. Protests turn violent over the summer with police deploying tear gas, smoke bombs and water cannons to disperse crowds and protestors retaliating with fireworks and molotov cocktails thrown at Jakarta Police Headquarters.
The administration’s failure to suppress the protests resulted in it barely holding onto power. A similar movement swept Nepal in early September, following years of unstable governments and corruption scandals since the republic was established in 2008. Youth protests were ignited by a new social media ban aiming to stifle criticism of the administration - especially a TikTok trend using the hashtag “#Nepokids” exposing the luxuries afforded to the children of politicians.
However, the ban backfired, leading people to take to the streets in protests on September 8th. Key government buildings and Nepal’s largest media house were set on fire, and over 70 people were killed by police before Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli’s government was toppled. The messages of protestors were reminiscent of similar movements in the region over the last few years where mass youth protests over rising inflation and unemployment led to the ousting of Sri Lanka’s President Gotabaya Rajapaksa in 2022 and Bangladesh’s Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in 2024.
Gen Z’s use of social media has allowed for these protests to become interconnected – a wider movement as opposed to individual national ones. The cross-border solidarity and exchange of tactics make it difficult for governments to suppress the uprisings even when they impose social media bans like the one attempted in Nepal. Driven by young people, digital