Bangladesh has acquired the technical capability to block live and videos on social media. It is expected that Facebook and YouTube will come under the control of the government soon.
Posts and Telecommunications Minister Mostafa Jabbar made the remarks while participating in a dialogue organized by the Bangladesh Secretariat Reporters Forum (BSRF) at the Secretariat on Wednesday.
He said, “We have also acquired technical skills in the field of social media. If we want, we can turn off Facebook pictures now, we can turn off Facebook videos. I can turn off YouTube Live, I can turn off Facebook Live.”
Apart from reporting against 300 links in the Comilla incident, his ministry has also been able to shut down 364 links, the minister said.
He said, “As we have been saying from the beginning, our responsibility is to build digital highways. We are sincerely trying to fulfill the responsibility of building this highway and we are also trying to be safe in the future. It has already been discussed that we are in a critical situation when it comes to digital security and social media has been identified as the biggest threat to digital security. But shutting down Facebook and YouTube is not the only solution. Headache has to be treated with medicine. It cannot be cut off.’
‘We’ve been fighting for a long time – we’re going digital, at the same time we’re going to be proactive in ensuring digital security. The more digital we are, the more digital security will be required. This is just one aspect of social media, reliance on rumors or communal conflict. If I can’t guarantee the security of my information when everything from my transactions and personal information is digital, then digitalization will be a danger to me,” he added.
Mostafa Jabbar said that discussions have been going on with Facebook since 2018. “I am still in talks with Facebook,” he said. Bangladesh is their huge market. Facebook-YouTube has understood the situation in Bangladesh. We believe that one day they will follow our commands and do everything accordingly.
The telecom minister also mentioned that they are now paying VAT in the context of continuous pressure from Bangladesh on global technology companies. At the same time, the 5G network will be piloted in the country by 2021 and it will be expanded in 2022, he said.
BSRF President Tapan Biswas presided over the dialogue while General Secretary Masudul Haque conducted the dialogue. Chief Information Officer Shahenur Mia was present at the dialogue.