Interim Chief Urges Meta to Curb Misinformation Undermining Social Harmony
Interim Government’s Chief Advisor Professor Dr. Muhammad Yunus has voiced concern over the disruptive role of online social media platforms in Bangladesh’s social cohesion, stating that in some cases these platforms are even “spreading hate.” Calling on Meta—the parent company of Facebook, Instagram, Threads, Messenger, and WhatsApp—he urged the tech giant to “find an effective way to prevent such false information.”
“This is a big problem. We must find a way to fight it,” he said, during a meeting held on Wednesday, June 25, at the state guesthouse Jamuna, where he met with Simon Milner, Vice President of Public Policy for Asia Pacific at Meta, and Ruzan Sarwar, Meta’s Manager of Government Affairs.
“Bangladesh is a densely populated country. One wrong word can destabilize the entire nation. Some people do it deliberately,” said Professor Yunus.
In response, Milner said that Meta is ready to work with Bangladesh’s interim government, particularly in light of the upcoming general election next year. He added that over the past few days, they have held meetings with various authorities and rights activists in the country.
“We’ve had a dedicated team for Bangladesh for the past five years,” he noted.
The Chief Advisor remarked, “Meta platforms—especially Facebook—have potential to boost business growth, but at the same time, they can be potentially dangerous if ethical standards are not upheld.”
Faiz Ahmad Taiyeb, Special Assistant to the Chief Advisor on Posts, Telecommunications, and ICT, who was present at the meeting, called on Meta to improve its linguistic capabilities in Bangla. He observed that Meta’s LLM-based AI still relies heavily on English and lacks proper support for the Bangla language.
Earlier, on Tuesday, June 24, Meta officials also met with representatives from the Ministry of ICT, where the Bangladesh side urged Meta to invest in Bangla-language LLMs and AI-based sentiment analysis tools. They also recommended increasing the number of human content reviewers to better counter misinformation and disinformation in local contexts.
According to meeting sources, the ICT Division urged Meta to strengthen enforcement of its community standards in Bangladesh by hiring more Bangladeshi content reviewers who possess a deep understanding of local language, culture, and sensitivities.
The division also requested Meta to set up cache servers and edge routers within the country to improve service efficiency, optimize bandwidth, and ensure protection of Personally Identifiable Information (PII).
Representatives from Bangladesh Police and the BTRC, who were also present at Tuesday’s meeting, asked Meta to enhance its response time in removing harmful content. The police specifically sought Meta’s cooperation in proactively identifying threats and crimes, flagging misinformation or disinformation, issuing mob violence alerts, and providing suicide prevention warnings.
