Kathmandu, Oct 7: The Press Council Nepal (PCN) has recommended action against 43 YouTube channels to the Cyber Bureau of Nepal Police for violating the code of conduct. According to the Council, these channels have disseminated one-sided, fabricated, misleading, and indecent content.
The decision follows a meeting of the Code of Conduct Monitoring Subcommittee, chaired by Balkrishna Basnet, which determined that legal action is warranted against these channels for promoting inappropriate content. In a press statement released on Monday, the Council said those materials are capable of promoting violence, terror, and propaganda.
On April 2, the Council introduced procedures for managing, listing, and archiving YouTube channels, and the current monitoring and recommendations for action are based on these procedures. Since the start of the fiscal year on July 16, the Council has blacklisted three online media outlets for their disobedience to the code of conduct, which means they will be denied state facilities.
To date, the Council has received 76 complaints regarding code of conduct violations and has taken action against 269 pieces of content through self-monitoring. These procedures aim to systematize YouTube channels that operate with the journalistic spirit it is said.