LocationsMonitoring Digital Media during Nepal’s 2026 Elections
May 1, 2026
UNDP’s support for Nepal’s election in March 2026 included the use of eMonitor+, its social media monitoring platform, to support strategic communication at the Election Commission of Nepal (ECN).
The eMonitor+ platform uses AI technology to scrape and analyze social media data, and a smaller sample of that can be verified and analyzed by human monitors to identify trends and plan strategic communication responses.
Even though the ECN did not use eMonitor+ for monitoring social media during the elections – which it did with support of security agencies – a small team at UNDP analyzed selected posts to produce trend reports on various themes.
A team from UNDP analyses reports derived using eMonitor+.
The reports discussed trends in hate speech and identity-based violence, disinformation and election manipulation, violations of the Election Code of Conduct (ECoN), and overall trust in the election process and institutions.
According to these reports the election environment was highly polarized with high volumes of hate speech and hostile discourse against candidates from certain political parties. In addition to the vitriolic attacks, those targeted to women candidates included both vulgarity and identity-based violence. (Report)
The ECN used some findings of the trend reports in its regular press meetings as a strategy to discourage such posts, and also to make the public aware about its awareness of the online environment, such as the increased misuse of AI to manipulate information.
The Election Commission, Nepal addresses the media in the lead up to the elections.
“The information on eMonitor+ is intended for use to support strategic communication, we do not advocate its use for sanctioning violators of the election code of conduct,” said Riccardo Barranca, Senior Strategic Communications Advisor with UNDP's Election project supported by the Governments of Australia, Norway, and United Kingdom.
“For example, if an increase in online verbal harassment of female candidates is observed in monitoring, the election management body can use the information to respond through public communication to discourage such acts,” he added.
An analysis using the eMonitor+ software.
A December 2024 survey by Sharecast Initiative had found very high use of social media by people for obtaining information in Nepal. For example, Facebook was used by 75% (N = 2740) of the respondents and TikTok by 52% (N = 1555). The number of users of both platforms have grown since.
Much of the problematic content discovered during monitoring had circulated on these platforms, high risk content in terms of information integrity was also tracked on other social media platforms such as Instagram, X, YouTube, etc.
In February, the population penetration of broadband Internet services (including mobile Internet) was around 145 percent, which means that the use of digital media – both social networking and online news and information platforms – will continue to expand.
“It is, therefore, important to ensure there is a robust monitoring system in place within the ECN,” says Barranca. “ECN can consider institutionalizing eMonitor+ as part of the preparation for the local elections that are likely to be held in 2027.”
The ECN office in Kathmandu, Nepal.
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