Offline realities of Bangladesh reflects in Facebook: Meta

Social media platform Facebook in Bangladesh witnesses whatever that reflects offline realities of the country, said Nawab Osman, head of counterterrorism and dangerous organizations, Asia Pacific region of the platform’s parent company Meta.

The Meta officials made these remarks in reply to the query from newspersons during a virtual press conference on measures of Meta to fight against terrorism and spread of hate on Monday.

There were a spree of communal attacks in Bangladesh recently and that spread in various places though Facebook and what measures Facebook has taken to prevent such attacks.

In reply, Nawab Osman said, “I believe whatever we are seeing on our platform it’s a reflection, perhaps it’s more extreme reflection of offline realities.”

He, however, said Meta has to be more proactive. Meta is carrying out various activities to raise tolerance at marginal level and civil society has got involved in this work, he added.

On monitoring extremism in Bangladesh, the Meta official said the company has experts who are Bangladeshi and understand Bangla language, culture and market. Technology and algorithm also play role in monitoring extremism.

Regarding the measures of Meta to fight against terrorism and spread of hate, the official said nothing supporting violent activity, praising or supporting hate is present on any platform of Meta.

Meta takes no action against content condemning banned organisation or individuals or their activities, news reports and neutral discussions but the motive of such content must be clear.

Meta said 35,000 people work in its security and protection team and they company also has 15,000 content reviewers.

In 2004, Mark Zuckerberg founds Facebook Inc, which was rebranded as Meta in 2021.