Google, Facebook to respond to queries within 48 hours: Tarana
Staff Reporter
State Minister for Posts and Telecommunications Division Tarana Halim yesterday said Facebook, Google and Microsoft authorities have assured Bangladesh to reply within 48 hours after filing any query.
Facebook authority would notify us (Bangladesh) about their steps or opinion within 48 hours after forwarding the URL used for violence against women and terrorist activities, said Tarana. Independent lawmaker Rustam Ali Farazi inquired at parliament whether the government had reached any agreement with Google regarding sharing of information.
We have not inked an agreement with Google yet, but we have had elaborate discussions with the three organisations regarding sharing of information related to any unprecedented incident, Tarana Halim said in reply.
Tarana went to the two countries on January 12 to visit facebook, Google, Microsoft, Telecom Malaysia and Cellcom Axiata Berhad to know about cyber security and business cases, especially for the development of state-owned cellular phone operator Teletalk. During the visit, she also met with communications and information ministers of both the countries.
The state minister said Facebook would take necessary measures to provide training law enforcement agencies and government officials using Special Point of Contact (SPOC) model.
About the much-talked about admin panel in Bangladesh, Tarana said the Facebook
authority told her that nowadays the facebooks admin does only daily usual activities and
publicity works.
Quoting the Facebook authority, the state minister said Facebook assured that they would take more effective and prompt steps to check publishing vulgar pictures and articles those would encourage vengeance to women, terrorist acts and hate speeches even without setting admin panel, if it gets specific complaints.
She informed that the Google officials assured her that it would identify objectionable contents, it there any, in google.com.bd and remove those.
Besides, Google would also take quick initiative if there specific complaints against any video in Youtube especial for sexual content, violent or repulsive content, hateful or abusive content, harmful dangerous acts, child abuse, spam or misleading, infringe rights and captions issue, added Tarana.
In addition, Microsoft has offered Bangladesh to assist child online protection, said the state minister. Mentioning her experiences on visiting smart-city, Tarana Halim said she want to introduce smart service in big cities in Bangladesh which would bring all kinds of service under one umbrella.
But, coordination between different ministries and city corporations is inevitable for implementing the smart services, she noted.
About the rebranding and revamping of Teletalk, the minister said new journey of Teletalk is going to be started from February.
Referring to the experiences of Cellcom, she said it would possible to turn teletalk into a profitable venture, as cellcom was an unprofitable entity in 2006, but now it is second profitable company. So far we are in the right track regarding taking different steps for the new journey of Teletalk.
