Press Trust of India
Dhaka, June 12: Facebook, Microsoft and Google have agreed to work with Bangladesh government over “inappropriate contents” on the Internet, the Parliament was told Sunday amidst a series of brutal killings by Islamists of secular bloggers and minorities. Speaking at a question-and-answer session, State Minister for Telecoms Tarana Halim said that not only social media giant Facebook, but the two internet behemoths, too, have agreed to respond to the government’s request within two days. “After intense discussion with Facebook, Google and Microsoft, it has been agreed that they will respond to requests within 48 hours,” she said.
Last year, the Bangladesh government suspended the use of Facebook, its messenger app, and some other communication apps for 22 days, citing security reasons following the murder of two foreign nationals and the attack on a police check post. Before the 22-day ban, the government had blocked some popular calling and messaging services such as WhatsApp and Viber for several days during a three-month agitation by the BNP-led alliance early last year. Police had said then they were having trouble tracking down saboteurs, as they were using these apps to communicate.
In November last year, Halim had written to the Facebook authorities, conveying her wish to discuss with them a gamut of issues related to the social network site and its messenger app. The minister subsequently held a meeting at Facebook’s Asia Pacific headquarters in Singapore and told reporters about the social media giant’s promise to cooperate. Facebook’s half-yearly ‘Government Request Report’ in April this year showed that it had, for the first time, responded to requests from the Bangladesh government. Between July and December last year, the government had sought information on 31 Facebook users. The report said that it had responded to 16.67 per cent of the requests.
