Tarana sits with Facebook officials in Singapore on Jan 12

Having held a meeting with the Facebook authorities in Bangladesh, State Minister for Posts and Telecommunications Tarana Halim now plans to sit with them again on Jan 12 in Singapore.

She told a press conference at the Secretariat on Wednesday, “Cyber security, defamation of women, etc, will come up for discussion with the Facebook authorities... We would like them to set up an administration for themselves in Bangladesh.”
 
Tarana Halim convened the press conference to highlight the achievements of the Posts and Telecommunications Division in the last two years.
 
“We’ve sent focal points from BTRC over the lodging of complaints (on misuses of Facebook). Statistics of complaints that we have already filed will be presented. We’ve requested them to act on the complaints taking into consideration the religious and social values of our country.”
 
Asked if the government would try to make national ID mandatory for opening a Facebook account, the junior minister answered in the negative.
 

“We’ve no such plan right at this moment. But we want to ensure the best global practices (in Bangladesh),” she said.

Tarana Halim said she was scheduled to hold meetings with the authorities of Google and Microsoft during her Jan 12-24 visits to Singapore and Malaysia.

The state minister had earlier written to the Facebook authorities conveying her wish to discuss a gamut of issues over the social network site and its messenger app.

After they responded positively, three ministers had sat with Facebook officials in Dhaka on Dec 6.

The government had suspended the use of Facebook, its messenger app and some other communication apps in Bangladesh on Nov 18 because of security reasons.

The suspension with withdrawn 22 days later.