The telecom regulator has taken up a costly project to make the internet “safe” – especially in the wake of probable political confrontations – by filtering data at internet gateways and different social media sites, even news websites.
A number of officials at the Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (BTRC) said they were going to launch a massive campaign this month in this regard. The project of filtering sensitive data at the internet gateways had started in April, but it could not be established yet.
The BTRC has already selected seven international firms and requested them to submit their proposals by December 12.
After launching the technical monitoring, the BTRC will be able to filter all data passing through the gateways and sites such as Facebook, Twitter and different blogs. Even news websites could be affected which, many said, would hamper the free flow of information.
“Social media sites have now become one of the main tools of flourishing democracy in the world, and the government should not intervene in it,” Dr Ananya Raihan, executive director of Dnet, told the Dhaka Tribune last night over phone.
He said discussions on social media could also bring positive impacts on the government’s performance. “The government should not fear people’s voice and gag it.”
BTRC Chairman Sunil Kanti Bose, however, said: “As a regulator we need to protect ill-motivated elements from social media sites, blogs etc – we need to prevent contents that can cause disorder in political and social lives of people.”
He said the BTRC was not currently well-equipped to conduct the high-level monitoring.
“It is a very costly and time-consuming project, so it is taking some time. Earlier, we used to monitor and provide safe internet to people by manual regulating,” he told the Dhaka Tribune last week.
“Currently, we can monitor and block everything except Facebook. If anybody uploads offensive materials on Facebook, we can only request the Facebook authority to remove those contents.”
A BTRC official told the Dhaka Tribune that the project would cost at least Tk1.5bn.
The parliamentary standing committee on post and telecommunication also recently came up with an idea of making people use their national ID cards or similar smartcards to log in to their Facebook or other social networking media accounts. Some BTRC officials, however, said it was not possible.
Earlier, the International Telecommunication Union, which operates under the United Nations, proposed a global system that would allow state control over the internet. Democratic countries opposed the idea.
The BTRC intends to use both software- and hardware-based internet safety solution.
An official said the move was made to prevent online propaganda using religious sentiments, false pictures and news items to trigger unrest in the country.
Online propaganda in the past few months by Jamaat-e-Islami and its student body Islami Chhatra Shibir had successfully instigated countrywide violence, the official said.
The move had stemmed from search engine giant Google’s refusal to take down the trailer of a religiously sensitive film from its website Youtube. Bangladesh had even asked Google to install a mirror server for Bangladesh nine months ago so that such videos could be filtered out.
The BTRC chairman said they would seek the government’s permission within a very short time to appoint a consultant for the “safe internet” project.
The government has amended the ICT Act 2006 to incorporate a provision of 14 years’ jail term for posting objectionable materials on the internet.
