From Screens to Streets: A New Wave of Youth-Led Protests

From Asia to Africa to Latin America, over the past two years a new wave of online mobilisation has hit irresponsive governments. Social media has played an important role in inspiring and consolidating tactics, generating outrage, and mobilising protesters to swiftly take to the streets, even when living under highly repressive regimes.

• Protest movements organised via various social media platforms across Asia, Africa, and Latin America demonstrate economic disillusionment and a crisis of political representation.

• The recent youth-led protests have been leaderless, spontaneous, decentralised, and horizontal, resonating with the ways in which such dissent manifested and evolved during the Arab Spring and Occupy movements of the 2010s as well as subsequently in East and Southeast Asia (particularly Hong Kong, Indonesia, and Thailand) in the 2020s to date. Such tactics are part of avoiding co-option by authorities and a response to a lack of effective political representation, with more traditional, hierarchical organisations often being perceived as anti-democratic.

• In terms of organising dissent and getting youth out onto the streets, recent horizontal protest movements have enjoyed notable success. When measuring the extent of the latter per original demands, however, outcomes are mixed. In Madagascar, Nepal, and Peru, corrupt governments have stepped down; uncertainty has continued to prevail in all three, though, as predatory elites seek to re-establish themselves amid a power vacuum.

Policy Implications

The failure to address youth dissatisfaction may spark further large-scale protests across the Global South, potentially leading, as seen in certain cases already, to the overthrowing of governments. Resorting to strict security measures, including digital repression, to contain the protests will not necessarily silence anger; instead, it will likely only spur greater opposition and instability.

Shared Discontent

Social media has played a significant role in youth communicating and coalescing around their shared discontent, as then translated into street protests spanning the globe – from Bangladesh in 2024 to Peru the following year. The triggers behind such mobilisation vary from one place to another, but common drivers include worsening economic conditions and rising dissatisfaction with corrupt and unaccountable governments.

Although precarity has long been a concern, Gen Z – meaning those born in the cohort falling between the late 1990s and the early 2010s – are experiencing increased anxiety about what lies ahead for them. The higher-education qualifications they attain do not necessarily ensure job security or even employment opportunities. This economic hardship manifests across multiple contexts, serving as a foundational element of simmering youth frustration.

However, economic adversity alone is insufficient to turn discontent into street protests. A second key element here, then, involves widespread disillusionment with political institutions and governments viewed as abusing their power to benefit select elites and their cronies alone. Equally important is the belief that established institutions, including political parties, do not effectively represent the interests of youth, thus highlighting the deep crisis of representation afoot. In fact, breaking with tradition, hierarchical social-movement structures are now seen as ineffective and inherently undemocratic by those participating. As a result, these disaffected youth turn to social media to express their feelings and find solidarity, with many of those in question becoming involved in politics primarily via participation in street protests.

Student Protests against Indonesia’s Authoritarian Turn

In Indonesia, large-scale demonstrations, as led by university students, began in 2019. Organised mostly via Instagram, Signal, Telegram, Twitter (now X), and WhatsApp under the hashtag #ReformCorrupted, referencing the 1998 Reformasi movement, protesters opposed a weakening of the anti-corruption agency and the revision of the Criminal Code that restricts civil and political freedoms. Similar protests continued across the country’s 38 provinces following the government’s anti-democratic actions, including the promulgation of several contentious laws. In 2024, Prabowo Subianto – a former military general purportedly responsible for multiple human rights violations, including the kidnapping of student activists during the events of 1998 – won Indonesia’s presidential elections. Since then, authoritarian tendencies have come to the fore. These include the expansion of the military’s role in civilian affairs and the recentralisation of economic control to fund flagship programmes, as leading to a reduction in budget allocations to essential public services (such as education).

In response, thousands of youth protesters have taken to the streets using different taglines and visual symbols shared on social media, such as #EmergencyWarning, #DarkIndonesia, and #JusticeforAffan. These events reached their peak in August 2025 as a reaction to lawmakers planning to raise their personal allowances despite worsening economic conditions nationally. They escalated into riots after a ride-hailing motorcycle taxi driver, Affan Kurniawan, was run over by a police car at a protest site in Jakarta (Ayun, Hermawan, and Mudhoffir 2025). A widely recognised flag from the anime One Piece, taken to symbolise anti-establishment sentiment and represent a call for social justice, would be flown at protest sites as a rallying cry, coming to inspire youth in a number of other countries too.

Nepal: Youth Protests Force the Prime Minister to Resign

Thousands of individuals, predominantly (although not exclusively) from Gen Z, took to the streets in Nepal in September 2025. Youth discontent had been on the rise nationally for months – if not years – in the lead-up to these events, as driven by entrenched corruption, continued mismanagement, and a flailing economy. Like in Indonesia, disillusionment with political elites was rife. Clearly, the continued rotation in and out of power of just three parties – the Nepali Congress and the two major Communist factions – fell short of fulfilling the promises of post-civil war democratisation that had emerged in 2006. With few genuine job prospects, many youth migrated abroad in search of work. Meanwhile, on social media, repeated exposure to images of the lavish lifestyle of the ruling elite and their family members fuelled intense public anger.

It was against such a backdrop that the government announced in early September a ban on social media platforms including Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and YouTube, whose parent companies had failed to register with the Ministry of Information and Communications. This was the final straw for many. Organising through platforms such as Discord and Instagram, using VPNs and flyers with QR codes on them to circumvent the ban, young people took to the streets in their tens of thousands. Five days of violence left 76 people dead; parliament, as well as the houses of sitting and former ministers, would be set on fire too. Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli, a former Marxist in office for the third time, resigned, and parliament was dissolved. Gen-Z protesters then organised a digital election on Discord, resulting in former chief justice Sushila Karki becoming the country’s interim leader. Since then, protest representatives have been involved in discussions with Karki’s interim government. These events are clear evidence of Gen-Z’s political awakening. Tens of thousands of people registered in just a few days to vote in the elections scheduled for March 2026, and 17 new political parties have applied for registration. The successful overthrow of Nepal’s corrupt political leadership subsequently inspired peers in Madagascar and Peru, and was also a hot topic among demonstrators from Indonesia to Kenya.

Bangladesh: Autocratic Overreach Is Met with Youth Backlash

Discontent in the South Asian country publicly manifested anew in June 2024, when the government, led by Sheikh Hasina, introduced quotas for government jobs set to favour the descendants of the 1971 war of independence’s “freedom fighters.” Many of those who stood to benefit were members of the ruling Awami League (AL), the party of Hasina – who herself is the daughter of the country’s first prime minister, Mujibur Rahman. At this point, Bangladesh was already suffering from an acute cost-of-living crisis, following rigged elections earlier in the year that sought to ensure the 15-year rule of Hasina and the AL would continue. In power since 2009, Prime Minister Hasina had, over the years, been responsible for the shrinking of democratic space, with opposition members jailed, elections becoming increasingly one-sided, and dissent suppressed. Moreover, while the country witnessed considerable economic growth, Hasina’s government failed to address burgeoning inequality, with the fruits of this prosperity flowing disproportionately to a business elite closely aligned with the government (Hossain 2025).

Initially, a student-led movement that grew to include hundreds of thousands (possibly millions) of people from across Bangladeshi society took to the streets in a largely peaceful manner. Hasina nevertheless ordered the security forces to open fire on protesters, leaving more than a thousand dead as the demonstrations swelled and turned into a weeks-long uprising. The army withdrew its support for Hasina, thus forcing her to flee to India. The movement’s student leaders then invited Nobel Laureate Muhammad Yunus to lead an interim government, which has since ruled the country. Like in Nepal and Indonesia, this constitutes a clear case of autocratic overreach – increasing repression amid widespread perceptions of a lack of accountability eventually galvanised large-scale protest movements (Sombatpoonsiri 2025). As people in Bangladesh anticipate new elections in February 2026, many hope for a more accountable government and one able to restore democracy. The road ahead will not be an easy one, however, given the deadly clashes involving supporters of different political parties in recent months.

Kenya: Youth Protests Inspire Others on the African Continent

The proposal of a finance bill that would have increased taxation and the cost of living provoked youth protests in the East African country in June 2024. Mobilising on X and other platforms, but not along party, generational, or ethnic lines, activists called their protests ageless, tribeless, partyless, leaderless. President William Ruto eventually withdrew the bill and attempted, ultimately unsuccessfully, to engage in talks with youth representatives. By then, however, protesters were already demanding his resignation, also because of failed promises and rampant police violence. Police forces killed 60 and abducted 71 demonstrators during this period according to the Kenya National Commission on Human Rights. Many hundreds more were injured or detained. While Ruto refused to step down, he eventually dissolved his cabinet and replaced its members. Across Kenya, demonstrations abated by mid-July 2024, around the time when police chief Japhet Koome resigned and law enforcement declared a protest ban in the capital Nairobi. A new protest wave was sparked the following year, however, among youth unwilling to accept continued police brutality and demanding accountability for the killing of 31-year-old blogger and teacher Albert Ojwang in custody on 7 June 2025. Together with the annual commemoration of the pro-democracy “Saba Saba” protests of 1990, this brought people back to the streets in June and July 2025, again being met with excessive violence and seeing no accountability.

Yet, Kenyan youth not only mobilised protesters in their own cities in 2024. Their demands also inspired Ugandan and Nigerian peers to protest respective economic policies and government corruption. Both countries saw brief manifestations of discontent: Uganda’s government reacted with heavy-handed repression, arresting over 100 protesters in mid-July and charging almost all of them with public-order offences. In Nigeria, thousands of youth took to the streets against President Bola Tinubu’s government and the high cost of living domestically, especially following mobilisation on social media. One year later, when protests erupted in Nepal, Nigerians debated online whether this would inspire a new wave of demonstrations across their country too (it did not).

Events in Nepal did, however, bring youth out to protest corruption, economic inequality, as well as the failures of their government in Madagascar (in relation to water and power supply) and Morocco (healthcare and education). In both countries, outrage over these issues led people to pour onto the streets, with explicit reference to the momentum and symbolism of youth protests elsewhere. In Madagascar, President Andry Rajoelina dissolved his government in September 2025, but Malagasy youth still demanded his resignation regardless. Demonstrations persisted despite being banned and continued police brutality: some 22 people died in the course of the protests according to the United Nations. When the army sided with the protesters, the president fled the country; a military leader was then installed as Madagascar’s new interim president.

Peru and Paraguay: Youth Rise Up against Corrupt Governments

Youth activists have also been responsible for the anti-government protests witnessed in these two Latin American countries since September 2025. In Peru, such events were sparked by a controversial pension-reform law that mandated all citizens over the age of 18 contribute to private funds. These demonstrations also reflect the long-standing resentment felt towards former president Dina Boluarte as well as Congress. The protesters called for her resignation, blaming Boluarte for the killing of 50 demonstrators in 2022 and the failure to combat the crime syndicates that continue to terrorise ordinary people. Boluarte was subsequently impeached by Congress, which then appointed its spokesperson, Jose Jeri, as interim president until the July 2026 elections yielded a successor. However, the new president has also proved unable to control the situation, while allegations of sexual assault against him sparked demands for Jeri’s resignation. In response, he declared martial law. The death of a protester further fuelled public anger, which escalated into widespread violence. Now, like citizens in Bangladesh, Peruvians are expecting a new round of elections – albeit with the outcome uncertain – to take place in April 2026.

In Paraguay, meanwhile, young people took to the streets against President Santiago Peña’s right-wing government in September 2025. While their demands were broader than those in Peru, they centred on common issues such as corruption, nepotism, and calls for better education, employment, and healthcare opportunities. These concerns were encapsulated in their rallying cry: “We are the 99.9%.” Again, images from One Piece featured in the course of these protests, being painted on walls and flown as flags. As in other places, these public manifestations of discontent met with intense repression. Akin to a witch hunt, the police searched the residences of those accused of participating in the mobilisation in seeking to detain them – a turn of events similar to what happened in Indonesia a couple of months earlier.

Gen-Z Protests’ Main Features

The absence of effective representation, including from grassroots organisations, has led this cohort to articulate their dissent both online and by taking to the streets. A leaderless, decentralised, and horizontal form of organisation is by no means new, as exemplified by the Arab Spring and the Occupy movements of the early 2010s as well as events in East and Southeast Asia (particularly Hong Kong, Indonesia, and Thailand) in the 2020s thus far. The advent of social media has served to accelerate these trends. However, today more than in the past, many protesters view centralised leaders and highly structured organisations as inherently undemocratic. In many places, such as Bangladesh, Indonesia, and Kenya, the dominance of leaderless movements has been shaped by the long-standing decline of structured organisational movements able to effectively channel social discontent (Mudhoffir 2023).

Yet, there are also influential established organisations that are consciously non-hierarchical. Brazil’s Movement for Free Public Transportation (Movimento Passe Livre) (Bevins 2024), famous for its 2013 “June Protests,” argues that leaderless, horizontal movements are the best way to organise against a corrupt government. In Indonesia, similarly, various small-scale anarchist groups believe that leaderless movements are the best response to rotten hierarchical organisations whose leaders are easily co-opted by elites. In a public discussion, for instance, a participant in the 2020 protests said that a movement without a centralised leader aims to avoid such co-optation, and that the “be water” philosophy, articulated in Hong Kong in 2019, was the most effective way to adapt to unpredictable situations and overcome obstacles (Mudhoffir 2023).

Nonetheless, a variety of established bodies – including issue-specific-non-governmental organisations, labour unions, religious groups, student movements, and more informal collectives – have been involved in mobilisation efforts around the globe. Some of these entities have existed for decades, accumulating experience and resources over time. However, whereas their members may be identified as opinion leaders who are invited to government negotiations or speak to the media, Gen-Z protesters, by and large, resist any specific movement organisers or groups who face up to the public on their behalf. Relatedly, many youth who organise via Discord, Instagram, or X seek to maintain their anonymity in both online and offline spaces. In Nepal, for instance, when notable youth leaders were invited to talks with the interim prime minister, other groups protested outside the meeting venue. This example also points to ideological divisions within movements, which draw together people of highly diverse political dispositions. While they may share concerns over corruption and unite to oppose autocratic leaders, they are not always able to coalesce around a common vision.

And yet, social media serves as an important space for creating more unified messages and sets of demands. This can be seen in how Nepalese youth chose their preferred interim leader in a “town hall” on Discord as well as how Indonesian protesters’ “17+8” demands (a set of immediate and long-term measures that the government should implement over the course of a year) emerged and spread widely on Instagram and X. While the use of digital platforms to coordinate protest action is not groundbreaking, what is notable as regards recent movements is how messages, tactics, and symbols have quickly spread across countries. The use of memes, hashtags, symbols, and other striking visuals is emotive and draws more participants into online campaigns and street protests alike. In Indonesia, for instance, videos of a police vehicle running over Affan Kurniawan and a woman in a pink hijab in a face-off with law enforcement went viral, inspiring many to create graphics and memes combining the colours pink and green (the latter inspired by motorcycle taxi drivers’ uniforms). These visuals spread rapidly online as part of campaigns to support protesters and motorcycle taxi drivers, drawing in netizens from across Southeast Asia (and beyond) using the hashtag #SEAblings.

The Jolly Roger flag from One Piece – first used by protesting students and truck drivers in Indonesia in July 2025 – has since appeared in Madagascar, Morocco, Nepal, Paraguay, Peru, and the Philippines alike. Moroccans, taking inspiration from Nepal, use an emoji of the latter’s flag to express their dissatisfaction with politics in Discord chats. Previously, protest tactics – including the aforementioned “be water” philosophy and images showing how to use certain tactical gear to evade arrest and protect oneself against tear gas – spread from Hong Kong to Indonesia, Thailand, and as far as Belarus (Serhan 2020), Catalonia (Hui 2022), and the United States (2020 Black Lives Matter protests). This speaks to youth movements’ creativity and innovation, as helping improve their resilience when demanding concessions from their governments and pushing for genuine political change.

An Outlook on Success

Recent protest movements have certainly managed to successfully channel dissent and mobilise youth. How far specific short-term demands have been achieved varies greatly, though. Governments in Indonesia and Kenya have made concessions, like withdrawing proposed benefits for legislators or the finance bill, but refused other major demands put forwards by activists. In Bangladesh, Madagascar, Nepal, and Peru, corrupt administrations have been ousted. Yet, it remains unclear whether such changes of government will lead to a more or to a less democratic system. This highlights fundamental issues around the efficacy of horizontal movements. Because political systems are unlikely to allow a power vacuum to persist (Bevins 2024), and typical horizontal movements find that hard to address, those with greater organisational capacity, including the military, are often best positioned to assume control. In Madagascar, we see exactly this dynamic at play, where the installation of a military interim president reminds us that successful regime change does not necessarily mean structural overhaul.

Thus, scholars have debated whether the horizontal movements that emerged with social media mobilisation are ultimately facilitating or hindering the eventual realisation of proclaimed goals. Early research argues that online mobilisation enables the rapid gathering of large crowds, even without existing ties between participants, but that this counts against them when it comes to subsequently negotiating with the regime (Tufekci 2017). Newer scholarship even suggests that protests have become less successful due to the horizontal nature of their mobilisation online and reliance on large leaderless demonstrations (Chenoweth 2020; Mudhoffir 2023). Yet, mass mobilisation remains a key factor in the success of protest movements (Chenoweth and Stephan 2011), being seemingly easier to achieve with the advent of new technologies such as smartphones and social media.

One of the unique characteristics of non-violent campaigns is so-called “backfire”: bigger protests, defections, or other negative outcomes for the incumbent regime as a reaction to the heavy-handed repression perpetrated by state security forces. Because killing peaceful protesters is a violation of social norms, such acts can spur a broader range of people to support the protests and increase the likelihood of defections (Stephan and Chenoweth 2008; Sutton, Butcher, and Svensson 2014). Security force defections, as seen in the case of the army coming to side with demonstrators in Bangladesh and Madagascar, can boost protest success (Stephan and Chenoweth 2008). Repression backfiring was also a key element in Indonesia and Kenya, where livestreamed state violence prompted more people to take to the streets. Communication channels are particularly important to this dynamic (Sutton, Butcher, and Svensson 2014). Yet, while social media might make backfire more common, governments are increasing their online surveillance in response (Chenoweth 2020). Once the regime in Nepal banned social media, protesters relied instead on grassroots activism and offline deeds (such as putting up flyers with QR codes on them).

Irresponsive and repressive governments will not manage to silence youth anger long-term. Social media and horizontal styles of organisation are seen by some as responsible for a recent trend of protest failure, but the youth-led protests portrayed here highlight its potential too: Connecting movements and inspiring activists around the world who share similar grievances, seeking to make their voices heard, and hoping to claim their voice in politics. Recent developments across different continents could thus shake up politics elsewhere, even should incumbent governments manage to maintain their grip on power.

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