Govt to sit with Facebook by this month to stop spread of objectionable content

The government will sit with social media giant Facebook within this month to stop the spread of "offensive and objectionable content" in Bangladesh, the state minister for post and telecommunications said today.

Social media sites have their own policies and guidelines and each country also has its own; and therefore care needs to be taken to ensure that the policies of social media sites are not in opposition of our social norms, laws and values, Tarana Halim said.

She was talking with journalists at a two-day workshop titled "Digital Bangladesh: Cyber Crime, Safe internet and Broadband" which was inaugurated by Speaker Shirin Sharmin Chowdhury at Le Meridien Hotel in the capital.

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Tarana further said a separate desk needs to be opened by Facebook for Bangladesh where complaints lodged by the Bangladesh government can be quickly processed.

Currently, it takes 48 hours for the Facebook authorities to respond to complaints lodged by the government.

There is a tendency among the young generation to fish for 'likes' and thus, they do not focus on the content, which is sometimes objectionable, the minister said, adding that, "We need to increase awareness among people on the use of internet."

The two-day workshop was jointly organised by Commonwealth Telecommunication Organisation, Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (BTRC) and the Bangladesh government.

Earlier on December 8, 2015 the government sat with Facebook executives for the first time and expressed concerns about the negative impacts of the popular social platform and claimed that it was threatening national security.