KATHMANDU, July 31: The Press Council Nepal (PCN) has taken action against 31 YouTubers (individual and company) in the past 15 days for disseminating contents breaching the Journalist Code of Conduct. 

Issuing a press statement on Tuesday, the media regulatory body shared that it took action against those erring YouTubers registered and not registered in the PCN as a media. 

The PCN, acting against those media and media persons violating the code of conduct and ethics of journalism, said that some YouTube channels' contents inflicting conflict, assassinating people's characters and spreading one-sided contents faced action.

The PCN directed three YouTube channels and their operators listed as media in the Council to edit and remove the contents that contradict the code of conduct, suspend the content deemed unfavorable and furnish clarification within 24 hours and immediately remove the obscene contents, according to the press statement. 

The PCN issued directives to Hello TV Nepal Facebook Page, PNP Media and Nagarik Patra Youtube Channel.

The Statutory body also took action against those YouTube channels and their operators who were disseminating misleading, indecent and obscene contents with exaggerated headlines inciting violence, terror and rumors.

Similarly, the PCN has sent a letter to Nepal Police's Cyber Bureau to take action and forward further investigation into 28 YouTube Channels that are not related to media but have been disseminating obscene content in the style of media.

The PCN shared that it punished altogether 43 erring YouTubers in the last Fiscal Year 2023/24.

"The Press Council Nepal has been monitoring the contents of social media, especially the YouTubers irrespective of their affiliation with media," read the statement. 

The statement said that PCN's attention has been drawn towards the transmission of contents that incite conflict, violence and terrors and contents having abusive languages and dissemination of contents without factual confirmation with the purpose of unnaturally increasing the viewership.

Meanwhile, PCN President Bal Krishna Basnet said that the erring YouTubers were penalized according to a separate standard. 

"Contents that are baseless, one-sided, misleading cannot be disseminated through any digital platforms. We have started taking against action those erring media and have been directing to correct or edit the false contents transmitted by those media," Basnet mentioned. 

According to him, the PCN has issued separate standards and guidelines to regulate and take action against erring YouTubers. 

He said that we should be focused on promoting the media sector by making the best use of social media instead of misusing it.

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