On 2 May 2016, Robert Penner, Canadian national residing in Nepal with a working visa, was arrested and then deported to Canada and his visa being cancelled. Based upon an analysis of the documentation related to his arrest and expulsion, this article analyses the articulation of different operations of control. A chain of public interventions and governmental actions makes the substance of the management of digital expression in Nepal and this has to be analysed with tools from media studies and science and technology studies. We present different operative regimes: Twitter accounts and discussions, police action and arrests, and court petitions. We analyse how operational levels are connected and how their interconnections lead to the criminalisation of one individual, most notably through the reformulations of the accusations by different groups of people via different devices. This in turn shows how specific technical interventions determine the control of the public space. These analyses then add to the debate upon the ‘digital public sphere’ by offering a critique of its spatial metaphor from a view focused on its performative stakes—public spaces not as sites of discussion, but as theatres of operations.

2016年5月2日，持工作签证居住在尼泊尔的加拿大国民罗伯特·彭纳被捕，然后驱逐回加拿大，他的签证被取消。在对与他的逮捕和驱逐有关的文献进行分析的基础上，本文分析了控制的不同操作的表达方式。一连串的公共干预和政府行动构成了尼泊尔数字表达管理的实质，必须使用媒体研究和科学技术研究的工具对此进行分析。我们介绍了不同的执行机制：Twitter帐户和讨论，警察的行动和逮捕以及法庭请愿。我们分析了运营级别之间的联系方式，以及它们之间的相互联系如何导致将一个人定为犯罪，最明显的是通过不同人群通过不同设备对指控的重新制定。这反过来说明了具体的技术干预如何确定对公共空间的控制。然后，这些分析通过以其表现力为重点-其公共场所不是作为讨论场所，而是作为行动剧院）对它的空间隐喻提出了批评，从而加剧了对“数字公共领域”的争论。