The Election Commission (EC) wants a monitoring system to curb the spread of rumours and propaganda on social network platforms in the build-up to the 11th parliamentary election.
Election Commission Secretary Helal Uddin Ahmed said a meeting would be held on Monday to discuss the plans with representatives of the Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (BTRC), telecommunication firms and police officials.
“Of course we will have our monitoring team (but) we will follow the advice given to us by the officials concerned at the upcoming meeting,” he said.
“The social network is a free and large platform. We will discuss ways to curb the spread of rumours and propaganda in that meeting.”
While Helal Uddin Ahmed said the issue of using social media for electioneering will be on the agenda, the commission presently had no plans to prevent access to Facebook when the country heads to the polls on December 30.
According to officials concerned, the EC has already held a meeting on ways to prevent the spread of rumours on social media platforms.
Experts present at the meeting advised the commission not to shut down access to social networks, but try to halt the spread of misinformation and rumours only.
Separately, Helal Uddin said another meeting will be held at 3:30pm on Saturday to finalize how many polling centres will be given electronic voting machines (EVMs) for the election.
This story was first published on banglatribune.com
