State Minister for Posts and Telecommunications Tarana Halim said Facebook, Inc had assured Bangladesh that it would respond to specific safety concerns within 48 hours of receiving a complaint.
The state minister was speaking at a press conference held at the Secretariat yesterday.
“We had a fruitful discussion with Facebook officials for the south-east Asian region during my visit to Singapore.
“They assured us they would take action or inform us about what they were doing,” Tarana said.
“Facebook, Inc said there was no need to set up an administrative panel in Bangladesh to curb criminal activities using the social media platform,” she added.
“The company would take action on security issues within 48 hours of receiving a complaint through proper Bangladesh government channels.”
Tarana met Facebook officials in Singapore on January 12 to negotiate a deal with the social media giant.
During her visit, she also met with high-ups of Google Inc and Microsoft Corporation.
Microsoft showed interest in working with Bangladesh government to build a strong cyber security team that would help identify cyber security risks, she added.
They also proposed to provide assistance on developing cyber protection for children in Bangladesh.
Meanwhile, Google assured that it would take steps to remove objectionable and potentially harmful contents from Google Bangladesh site (google.com.bd).
“It will also take steps if Bangladesh government places complaints about any content that is indecent, violent, hateful or abusive, harmful and dangerous, involves child abuse, is a spam or misleading information, and infringes rights, on YouTube,” Tarana said.
She said the government had taken initiative to re-brand Teletalk to make it a leading player in the country’s telecommunication industry. As part of this initiative, a new logo for the only state-owned mobile phone operator will be launched next month.
“We are following the lead of Celcom, the leading mobile phone operator in Malaysia. Teletalk will earn people’s confidence by improving its services throughout the country,” she said.