Nepal to enforce election code of conduct from Jan 17

Nepal Election Commission's acting chief on Friday, January 9,  said that the election code of conduct will be enforced in the country from January 17 ahead of the March 5 elections.  Ram Prasad Bhandari, acting Chief Election Commissioner, updated Prime Minister Sushila Karki on the election preparations during a meeting at her official residence in Baluwatar, according to the prime minister’s secretariat.

Addressing a press conference on Friday, the commission said that it will monitor the possible spread of false, misleading and negative information through social media sites ahead of the general election.

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"Actively monitoring the possible spread of false information, negative publicity, hate messages, deep fakes, false sites or fake accounts, the commission will take legal action against the culprit," said spokesperson of the commission Narayan Prasad Bhattarai.   "We have also done correspondence with the Meta, Tiktok and X in this regard," Bhattarai added.  The commission has also started using social media monitoring software for this purpose, he added.