Discourage negative use of the internet, says telecoms state minister Tarana Halim at ‘Dialogue on Safer Internet’

State Minister for Post and Telecommunications Tarana Halim has urged all to discourage people from using Internet ‘negatively’.

Senior Correspondentbdnews24.com
Published : 29 August 2015, 01:08 PM
Updated : 29 August 2015, 09:48 PM

The newly appointed minister was speaking at ‘Dialogue for Safer Internet’ organised by bdnews24.com at Dhaka’s Radisson Blu Water Garden Hotel on Saturday.

The talk was organised to raise awareness about cyber safety among Bangladesh's 48.35 million Internet users.

“Information communication has many benefits but it can also cause much harm. The negative use of Internet must be discouraged,” she said.

“Many upsetting and tasteless comments are posted on Facebook to damage politicians.”

The Internet, especially social media sites like Facebook, can ‘turn into traps’ if one was not aware, said the minister.

“We must verify the process before we start commenting in line with negative users and easily believe what they claim. We must verify before we comment.

“Because these can spark mass-scale militant activities and many cases of character assassinations.”
        
The MP cited the hate attack at Cox’s Bazar’s Ramu and chaos created by Hifazat-e Islam to say, “It's about time we took action against those who spread bad propaganda using the Internet.

“There is no alternative to that.”

Down with the bad: Mashrafe

Bangladesh cricket team captain Mashrafe bin Mortaza in a video message to bdnews24.com talked about how Bangladesh cricketers faced harassment on a social media website.

He advised, in the clip aired during the roundtable, that the Internet should not be used for disparaging others.

Mashrafe shared his teammate Nasir Hossain’s bad experience after he posted a photo with his sister on Facebook.

“The Internet is now very popular in Bangladesh. It has good and bad sides to it.’

“Let us not use it for bad purposes. We can avoid the negative sides.”