Abrar Hussain: The government has announced its intention to develop content filtering systems in order to prevent the spread of ‘rumors’ through different social media. The Telecommunications Minister Mustafa Jabbar made the statement at an event in Dhaka yesterday.
The announcement comes after allegations of ‘rumors’ spreading through Facebook, that further escalated the violent clashes between student protesters demanding road safety and Awami League activists in front of the party president’s offices in Dhanmondi on Saturday.
“Right now, we have no content filtering system on social media such as Facebook,” the minister said in reply to a question, reported BDnews.
“At present,” he said, “we can only make requests to Facebook.”
“Facebook maintains community standards in line with the American law. We are in close contact with Facebook, but it does not listen to our all requests. That’s why, we have undertaken a project. It is a matter of digital security. Once the project is complete, we will be able to filter online content.”
Defending the recent internet shutdown, Jabbar said, “The government can take any step to ensure security of the state or the people in any situation.”