Press Council Nepal Take Action to 43 YouTube channels for misleading information

The Press Council of Nepal has written to the Cyber ​​Bureau of Nepal Police to investigate and take action against 43 YouTube channels that are spreading factual, misleading and unlimited content. The medium has been sent for legal action for transmitting one-sided, rumourous, exaggerated and obscene content. The council has been sending it to the police for further action if it is not warned if it broadcasts wrong content through such means that are not registered as media.

According to the decision of the code of conduct monitoring sub-committee chaired by Council President Balkrishna Basnet, it has been decided to take action against various media including social networks.

In the press release issued by the Council today, it has been stated that since last July, action has been intensified against violence, terrorism, baseless, spreading rumours, spreading confusion and panic among the public by giving headlines with exaggerated thumbnails. On the 20th of March last, the council has been making regular monitoring and taking actions related to YouTube management, cataloging and archiving.

The council has blacklisted three media outlets for disobeying the directives to follow the code of conduct since July. Such media will be deprived of any facility available from the state level. Among the blacklisted media are ABPcrimenews.com, TVannapoorna.com and Setokhari.com. In this financial year, 76 complaints have been registered and 269 cases have been dealt with by the Council through self-monitoring.

The council has been working with the purpose of making the YouTube channel organized and dignified with the aim of doing journalism in accordance with the values ​​of journalism. According to the Council, in the context of increasing complaints and grievances regarding the content transmitted through the YouTube channel, regulation has been started as a procedure.

In the statement, it is mentioned that the five online media outlets that are operating under the media but are transmitting content contrary to the code of conduct have been instructed to remove them, and the other five media outlets have been asked to remove controversial content and ask for an explanation. Similarly, warning to remove the contents of four unregistered web portals and social networks, otherwise action will be taken according to prevailing laws.

A correspondence has been sent to the Nepal Telecommunication Authority for the arrangement that a web portal that transmits content that is not properly operated, but disobeys despite being warned several times, cannot be transmitted within Nepal. Similarly, it is reported that the Council has placed special monitoring on Onlinepana.com, Swasthyalive.com, Janatatimes.com, Khaptadtv.com, GoodTV.com, Arthassanjal.com, Dhvanikhabar.com, which are broadcasting controversial news.