koonsolo
When I was young in the 90's we used to go to music festivals. It was nice to be with your friends, just relax and enjoy some music.

Years ago I went back to the same festival, and what I notice what changed immensely was that everyone was taking pictures and selfies with smartphones. It was so weird to see. Plus, what used to be a Rock festival was now a Pop festival (everyone needed to be there).

Somehow nowadays, you don't only enjoy yourself, but you have to broadcast it that you're enjoying yourself. For me, that takes away a big part of the enjoyment.

I'll stop my old man's rant now ;).

politelemon
While I understand the intent of the freedom of expression campaigners statements and those by "content producers", they are missing important context and assuming they are without blame.

The "content producers" are not interested in the location itself, only what the location can give them, which is engagement numbers on their platform. The sanctity of the location itself is of little relevance.

It's that singular focus which is the problem here, not any kind of curtailment of freedom of expression. And even with such freedoms you shouldn't expect no consequences. These loose bans are the consequence, and I'm willing to bet that at no point would other tiktok users or expression campaigners have asked their fellows to behave themselves.

After all there are other people who visit these locations and aren't needed to be told to respect it.

Beldin
> "Officials should have requested TikTok content producers to respect the sanctity of the religious places, instead of banning something outright.”

No, they really should not.

Apply Will Wheaton's Rule; in case of doubt (whether that rule applies): don't. If you're not mature enough to do that, that's a problem; if there are a large number of ignorant folks like you, that's a very good reason for banning something outright.

WalterBright
> content creators

I suppose as a programmer I am a "content creator", but, like, gag me with a spoon.

I've seen a handful of those popular clips on youtube, always with a 20-something presenter with coke-fueled loud yelling into the camera, too-bright colors, quick clips, kindergarten animations. Always the blaring pitch to subscribe. Barf. Yeah, I'm an old man, so I'm immune to the attraction of it.

beilabs
I live in Nepal. The country has some really wonderful regulations across all sectors, very few of them ever enforced.
groffee
I hate that "influencer" is even a thing.
flr03
TikTok is not the problem here, so thy are missing the points with the No TikTok signs.

If they are annoyed by people dancing and recording themselves they should have a "Please no recording devices and no dancing" sign.

yftsui
Poor / no cellular coverage at national parks is such a nice thing to have, thanks to the “influencers”.
jmyeet
I find this phenomenon of essentially mass gloating to be really depressing form the perspective of human psychology.

I mean this has caused problems well beyond Nepal [1]. Hundreds have died taking selfies [2]. It's just so sad that the need for approval and envy ruins tourist spots and kills people.

Nepal is an interesting case because the country is really impoverished and really depends on the income from mountaineering. The result however is that Everest in particular is way too crowded and it kills people as people get stuck in the death zone [3].

All essentially for a less than 30 minute photo op at the top. There are a bunch of mountains over 8,000m in height. Some are even much more difficult to climb than Everest (eg K2). But people go to Everest to be a couple of hundred meters higher for the bragging rights and they're quite willing to endanger themselves and others to get there.

I really don't understand this.

[1]: https://www.insider.com/travel-destinations-instagram-influe...

[2]: https://www.npr.org/2019/05/06/720800572/hundreds-have-died-...

[3]: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-britain-everest-casualtie...

anm89
I think a lot of significant sites would do well to ban photography and video entirely.

People are upset that Venice will turn into a museum with entrance passes and so on and few people will live there. I think that's yhe best realistic case for a lot of these places.

So many of them are already unenjoyable to visit, blanketed in trash, herding lines of people from busses to take a few pictures and be loud for a few minutes before stampeding back to where they came.

elzbardico
We in the west should have banned Instagram in historic sites years ago too
MomoXenosaga
There was an interesting idea in my country that predictably got massacred in the media:

A CO2 budget. High enough that poor people could still fly to Spain once a year low enough to block yuppies from sightseeing Nepal or New York. Obviously the wealthy would never allow it- virtue signaling on HN about how long they use their iPhone is one thing.

lancesells
Anyone else think it's odd that the signage[1] is so aged after a year or two? [1] https://restofworld.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/IMG-20220...
sudden_dystopia
Interesting given Nepals close relations to China (they help put down anti China rhetoric of Tibetan refugees and strictly adhere to one China principle) that Nepal gets the western version of Tik tok and not the super serious Chinese version.
mikewarot
The first thought I had was that this was a Chinese Government imposed policy to stop anyone from discussing non-Han history and culture. I'm surprised to learn that, at least in theory, Tibet is still a separate country from Red China.
ryankrage77
When I went to Iceland a few years ago, various tourist spots had 'no drone' signs. There was still a drone or two in the air at every one of them. I expect these signs in Nepal will be ignored too.
xtiansimon
> “They need to play the same music over and over again to get that perfect shot…”

Sounds disrespectful. What’s the issue? Actual harm to TikTok freedom of expression or that memes* are rotting our brains?

* memes a la Dennett, Blackmore

aaron695
sr.ht