Social media being strictly monitored by EC

The Election Commission (EC) has been closely monitoring social media in connection with the upcoming local elections on Friday since the silence period began on Tuesday night. The Election Commission has placed special emphasis on adhering to the code of conduct to ensure that the election is conducted in a clean, free, and fraud-free manner.

The EC has stated that a high-level code of conduct monitoring team is being mobilized to ensure that the code of conduct is not violated during the silence period starting from noon on Tuesday. Similarly, all the district election offices are also conducting necessary monitoring to ensure that the code of conduct is not violated. On top of this, micro-monitors are also working in this regard.

The action has been taken to prevent the election from being rigged.

Regulating and managing social media is seen as a challenge for the Election Commission for this election. For this reason, a task force on social network monitoring has been formed under the coordination of the IT chief of the Election Commission. Among them are social media experts, IT engineers, and representatives of Nepal Police's Cyber Bureau.

After the silence period has been implemented, the election-related materials, comments, and views have been monitored. The commission's responsibility is to immediately stop anyone from posting ‘false information’ that could affect the outcome of the vote, ‘assassination of someone's character’ and ‘slander someone’.

Those who make such posts will be punished according to the election law and cyber law.

The Election Commission has also written to Facebook's head office about the same. Similarly, the office of TikTok in Beijing has also been contacted through the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The EC has stated that such sites will be requested to be closed if the content used by anyone on social media is likely to disturb the election environment. The distribution of voter ID cards was started in various polling stations on Wednesday and will continue on Thursday. Similarly, voter education was provided to the voters on how to cast their votes in the polling stations.

Security has been tightened across the country for the election. Nepal Army has been mobilized for patrolling even in the streets of the capital.

As the election draws near, the streets of Kathmandu are becoming deserted. Many people from Kathmandu have gone home outside the capital to cast their votes.