Chief Adviser urges Meta to tackle disinformation more effectively

Chief Adviser Professor Muhammad Yunus today pressed Meta, the parent company of popular social media platforms including Facebook, Instagram, Threads, Messenger, and WhatsApp, to develop more effective strategies to combat disinformation that fuels social disharmony and spreads hatred in Bangladesh. The urgent call comes as Bangladesh prepares for an upcoming general election next year, a period often characterized by heightened online misinformation.

During a meeting at the State Guest House Jamuna with Simon Milner, Meta’s VP of Public Policy for Asia-Pacific, and Ruzan Sarwar, Public Policy Manager, Chief Adviser Yunus underscored the unique challenges posed by disinformation in a densely populated nation like Bangladesh. “This (disinformation) is a big problem. You must find a way to fight it,” he emphasized. He added, “Bangladesh is a densely populated country. One wrong word can destabilize the whole country. Some people do it deliberately.”

Milner affirmed Meta’s readiness to collaborate with Bangladesh’s Interim Government in tackling disinformation, particularly in the lead-up to the next general election. He noted that Meta has been actively engaging with various Bangladeshi authorities and rights groups in recent days and has maintained a dedicated team for Bangladesh for the past five years.

Chief Adviser Yunus acknowledged the immense potential of Meta platforms, especially Facebook, to foster business growth. However, he cautioned that these platforms could also be “potentially dangerous” if they fail to uphold ethical standards in content moderation.

Key Demands from Bangladeshi Authorities

The meeting followed a session on Tuesday where Meta officials met with representatives from Bangladesh’s ICT Ministry, Bangladesh Police, and the Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (BTRC). During this earlier meeting, Bangladeshi officials presented a series of crucial demands aimed at enhancing Meta’s effectiveness in combating disinformation and ensuring user safety:

• Improved Bengali Language Proficiency and AI Investment: Chief Adviser’s Special Assistant on Posts, Telecommunications and Information Technology, Faiz Ahmad Taiyeb, urged Meta to enhance its Bengali language proficiency, noting the current over-reliance of Meta’s Large Language Model (LLM) AI on English. The ICT Ministry further pressed Meta to increase investment in Bengali LLM and AI-based sentiment analysis to better detect and understand nuanced disinformation in the local language.
• Increased Human Reviewers: Citing recent research, the Bangladeshi side called for an increase in the number of human content reviewers with a deeper understanding of local language, culture, and sensitivities to effectively tackle fake news and information.
• Local Server Deployment: Bangladesh requested Meta to deploy cache servers and edge routers within the country. This would not only improve service efficiency and optimize bandwidth but also provide better protection for Personally Identifiable Information (PII) of Bangladeshi users.
• Faster Takedown Times and Proactive Threat Detection: Representatives from Bangladesh Police and BTRC specifically requested Meta to expedite the processing time for taking down harmful posts to ensure citizen safety. They also sought Meta’s proactive and faster cooperation in threat detection, crime detection, misinformation/disinformation alerts, warnings regarding inciting mob violence, and suicide prevention alerts.

This series of high-level engagements highlights the Bangladeshi government’s escalating concern over the spread of harmful online content and its commitment to ensuring a more responsible and secure digital environment for its citizens, especially as the nation approaches a critical electoral period. The discussions underscore the global challenge of balancing free expression with the urgent need to combat online harms and protect social cohesion.