Global social media platform Facebook would comply with the revenue regulator's rules for paying value added tax (VAT) once the policy in this regard would come into effect, said the company’s South Asia Public Policy Director Shivnath Thukral yesterday.
In an exchange of views with journalists at city’s Westin hotel, he also announced that Facebook would soon appoint a public policy officer in the country to smoothen its operation.
‘Once the National Board of Revenue formulates a policy or sets up the process how we should pay the VAT, we will follow the procedure,’ assured Shivnath.
The Facebook announcement came a day after the company had a meeting with Post and Telecommunication Minister Mostofa Jabbar, Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission Chairman Jahirul Haque and other senior officials of different law enforcement agencies.
Earlier in February, following government requests, the Facebook authorities blocked 1,500 accounts because they spread fanaticism, hateful comments, perverted photos and provocative statements.
Facebook claimed that it had more than 2.3 billion monthly active users as of December 2018 across the world. However, it faces a big problem of fake accounts. It caught 3 billion fake accounts in the last quarter of 2018 and the first quarter of 2019.
According to the company’s community guideline content related to graphic violence, adult nudity, terror propaganda, hate speech and bullying and harassment are considered as violations of the company policy.
In November 2015, the government blocked Facebook and its messenger apps on national security grounds in order to capture militants and prevent terrorist activities in the country.
Later the government said the ban was temporary and lifted it after 22 days later.
Facebook Head of Safety Bikram Sanag, Public Policy Director Ashwani Rana, Public Policy Manager Varun Reddy, Public Policy Manager Sumanta Biswas, Product Level Translator Toby Farnal, Public Policy Manager Rishabh Dara and Strategy Manager Matt Sanson were also present among others.
