Print: 28 Oct 2025
Social media like Facebook and YouTube are harbouring hate speech as they hardly response to government’s request to remove such contents in the name of ‘community standards’.
Facebook says the goal of its community standards is to create a place for expression and give people a voice. However, their community standards are conflicting with the local laws.
Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (BTRC) is entrusted with the task to communicate with social media platforms in light of the Digital Security Act regarding contents.
“As per the legal framework, BTRC is capable enough of dealing with social media. However, there’s a problem with the practice in respective countries. As most of the social media are American companies, they maintain ‘community standards’ in light of their own values. Those are different from ours,” Telecommunications Minister Mustafa Jabbar told the Daily Sun.
He also did not agree with the notion that it is a must for Facebook or YouTube to have their Dhaka offices to control contents. “In most of the cases, Facebook and Google take complaints online from different parts of the world and analyse those centrally from America before going for any action,” he said.
Mentioning that the social media platforms are presently paying value added tax, the minister said those will be brought the under the purview of tax. “To bring them under the tax net, the government will review the relevant law.” Bangladesh stands third among the top three contributors in terms of monthly active Facebook users, according to Meta, owning company of the social media platform.
Experts claimed that the authorities concerned have failed to take counter measures keeping pace with the surge in abuse of social media. Although objections are registered with evidence, Meta removes only 30 percent of contents and that too in a slow pace.
Digital Security Agency and National Telecommunication Monitoring Centre (NTMC) are monitoring and handling social media issues.
The NTMC has recently initiated a project titled ‘Content Blocking and Filtering’ to scan and remove the social media contents which are detrimental to the country and society.
Unfortunately, the social media giant allegedly remains indifferent towards complaints lodged by the BTRC and they do not remove contents most of the time.
Centre for Policy Dialogue distinguished fellow Dr Mustafizur Rahman has recently said the big techs like Facebook and Google do not pay tax though they fetch huge money from advertisements in Bangladesh.
“Tax evasion by tech companies is a global issue. To increase revenue from digital economy, there should be transparency in revenue administration. There’s no service code for tech companies. To realise tax from the sector, the revenue authorities should be automated. And it should have a strong tax administration,” he said.
The Bangladesh government has long been trying to negotiate with social media giant Facebook to set up their office in Dhaka. However, the platform did not pay any heed to the multiple requests from the policy level. Technology expert Sumon Ahmed Sabir said Facebook and YouTube have now become a medium of committing major cybercrimes as there are some mismatches between their ‘community standards’ and traditional laws of Bangladesh.
“Our telecom regulator has some distances with the social media platforms due to the interest of conflict on some issues. As a result, the platforms deny many requests from Bangladesh. Law enforcement agencies most often forward ‘politically motivated’ requests to the social media platforms which creates ‘mistrust’ between two parties (regulator and social media),” he said.
The social media platforms cannot consider Bangladesh as a separate market despite increasing growth of customers from the geographic location, according to the expert.
“Meta (owning company of Facebook) has set up a data centre in Kolkata to maintain governance over the region. India tried to formulate data privacy law which has hit a snag due a conflict with Twitter. Amid criticism from different quarters, Bangladesh has also taken initiative to formulate a law following India which is now under vetting,” Sabir said.
Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) intelligence wing director Mashiur Rahman Jewel said it is a tough task to control social media or cybercrimes as most of the offences take place from abroad.
“When we submit requests to Facebook and YouTube to remove contents, they hardly make response to around 30 percent requests. And the process takes time as well,” he said.
DMP Cybercrime Department Deputy Commissioner AFM Al Kibria also echoed Rahman, saying some content creators continued to spread rumours about all issues from abroad.
“We’ve brought the cybercriminals staying inside the country to book. And we continue drive to arrest other criminals,” he said.
Around 169 cases on cybercrimes were filed per month in 2020 on average. The number was 194 in 2021 while 313 in 2022, according to Counter Terrorism and Transnational Crime (CTTC) of Dhaka Metropolitan Police.
CTTC has investigated 280 cases of which 91 are related to Facebook and 58 to pornography.
Besides, 51 cases were associated with hacking, 41 e-transaction, 20 online fraud and 18 technology. Of total cases, 131 or around 47 percent were financial fraud.
The DMP has planned to use modern software like CDMS, CIMS and SIVS to analyse crimes and criminals.
Around 22,000 women victims of cyber space communicated with Police Cyber Support for Women in the last two years. Of them, 43 percent were victims of blackmailing by fake accounts on social media.
Development agency Action Aid claimed that only 14.91 percent women victims of online harassment lodge complaints with police. Of the total plaintiffs, around 44.12 percent file cases online hiding their identity while 5.88 percent got to cybercrime investigation division.
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Social media harbouring hate speech
Different sites hardly respond to requests to remove malicious contents
Social media like Facebook and YouTube are harbouring hate speech as they hardly response to government’s request to remove such contents in the name of ‘community standards’.
Facebook says the goal of its community standards is to create a place for expression and give people a voice. However, their community standards are conflicting with the local laws.
Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (BTRC) is entrusted with the task to communicate with social media platforms in light of the Digital Security Act regarding contents.
“As per the legal framework, BTRC is capable enough of dealing with social media. However, there’s a problem with the practice in respective countries. As most of the social media are American companies, they maintain ‘community standards’ in light of their own values. Those are different from ours,” Telecommunications Minister Mustafa Jabbar told the Daily Sun.
He also did not agree with the notion that it is a must for Facebook or YouTube to have their Dhaka offices to control contents. “In most of the cases, Facebook and Google take complaints online from different parts of the world and analyse those centrally from America before going for any action,” he said.
Mentioning that the social media platforms are presently paying value added tax, the minister said those will be brought the under the purview of tax. “To bring them under the tax net, the government will review the relevant law.” Bangladesh stands third among the top three contributors in terms of monthly active Facebook users, according to Meta, owning company of the social media platform.
Experts claimed that the authorities concerned have failed to take counter measures keeping pace with the surge in abuse of social media. Although objections are registered with evidence, Meta removes only 30 percent of contents and that too in a slow pace.
Digital Security Agency and National Telecommunication Monitoring Centre (NTMC) are monitoring and handling social media issues.
The NTMC has recently initiated a project titled ‘Content Blocking and Filtering’ to scan and remove the social media contents which are detrimental to the country and society.
Unfortunately, the social media giant allegedly remains indifferent towards complaints lodged by the BTRC and they do not remove contents most of the time.
Centre for Policy Dialogue distinguished fellow Dr Mustafizur Rahman has recently said the big techs like Facebook and Google do not pay tax though they fetch huge money from advertisements in Bangladesh.
“Tax evasion by tech companies is a global issue. To increase revenue from digital economy, there should be transparency in revenue administration. There’s no service code for tech companies. To realise tax from the sector, the revenue authorities should be automated. And it should have a strong tax administration,” he said.
The Bangladesh government has long been trying to negotiate with social media giant Facebook to set up their office in Dhaka. However, the platform did not pay any heed to the multiple requests from the policy level. Technology expert Sumon Ahmed Sabir said Facebook and YouTube have now become a medium of committing major cybercrimes as there are some mismatches between their ‘community standards’ and traditional laws of Bangladesh.
“Our telecom regulator has some distances with the social media platforms due to the interest of conflict on some issues. As a result, the platforms deny many requests from Bangladesh. Law enforcement agencies most often forward ‘politically motivated’ requests to the social media platforms which creates ‘mistrust’ between two parties (regulator and social media),” he said.
The social media platforms cannot consider Bangladesh as a separate market despite increasing growth of customers from the geographic location, according to the expert.
“Meta (owning company of Facebook) has set up a data centre in Kolkata to maintain governance over the region. India tried to formulate data privacy law which has hit a snag due a conflict with Twitter. Amid criticism from different quarters, Bangladesh has also taken initiative to formulate a law following India which is now under vetting,” Sabir said.
Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) intelligence wing director Mashiur Rahman Jewel said it is a tough task to control social media or cybercrimes as most of the offences take place from abroad.
“When we submit requests to Facebook and YouTube to remove contents, they hardly make response to around 30 percent requests. And the process takes time as well,” he said.
DMP Cybercrime Department Deputy Commissioner AFM Al Kibria also echoed Rahman, saying some content creators continued to spread rumours about all issues from abroad.
“We’ve brought the cybercriminals staying inside the country to book. And we continue drive to arrest other criminals,” he said.
Around 169 cases on cybercrimes were filed per month in 2020 on average. The number was 194 in 2021 while 313 in 2022, according to Counter Terrorism and Transnational Crime (CTTC) of Dhaka Metropolitan Police.
CTTC has investigated 280 cases of which 91 are related to Facebook and 58 to pornography.
Besides, 51 cases were associated with hacking, 41 e-transaction, 20 online fraud and 18 technology. Of total cases, 131 or around 47 percent were financial fraud.
The DMP has planned to use modern software like CDMS, CIMS and SIVS to analyse crimes and criminals.
Around 22,000 women victims of cyber space communicated with Police Cyber Support for Women in the last two years. Of them, 43 percent were victims of blackmailing by fake accounts on social media.
Development agency Action Aid claimed that only 14.91 percent women victims of online harassment lodge complaints with police. Of the total plaintiffs, around 44.12 percent file cases online hiding their identity while 5.88 percent got to cybercrime investigation division.