AIBRIEF
Nepal's social media task force wants platforms to detect deceptive flood content proactively, citing the 24 48 hour response window during a disaster that has killed 543 across two countries.
Nepal's government asked Meta and TikTok on Thursday to remove AI-generated flood videos, old footage recirculated as new, and fraudulent QR codes posing as relief-donation appeals, citing a response-time window it says is too slow for an active disaster.
The request came from the social media regulation and management task force, whose coordinator Bijay Kumar Roy told The Kathmandu Post that platforms should take down objectionable and deceptive content "as soon as it is flagged" and make their detection algorithms more proactive. Meta and TikTok currently take 24 to 48 hours to respond to user reports, the window Roy specifically named as the friction.
The ask follows flash floods and landslides that struck northern and central Nepal along the Bhotekoshi and Trishuli rivers on Wednesday, and the same weather that pushed mud and debris into Gyirong Port in Gyirong County in the Xizang Autonomous Region on the Chinese side. Across both countries, 543 people have died and 1,281 remain missing, including 856 foreigners.
AFP Fact Check and AAP FactCheck have identified specific AI-generated clips circulating as genuine Nepal-Tibet flood footage. Nepal's Ministry of Communications issued a separate public appeal on August 27 against sharing unconfirmed images and video.
Platform compliance is not on the record. The government's request is a formal ask, not a takedown order.