Legal notice served to Facebook, YouTube

A Supreme Court lawyer on Sunday served a legal notice to social media platforms Facebook and Youtube and several government agencies meant for law enforcement and telecommunication regulation for failing to remove content from social and digital media platforms that encourage violence and public disorder.

The notice - on behalf of Bangladesh Supreme Court Advocate Nilufer Anjum and Dhaka Judge Court Advocate Md Ashraful Islam - called out the inaction and failure to regulate, monitor, and remove contents that infringe the sovereignty, integrity, image, public order and security of the state, reports BSS Bangla Service.

Supreme Court lawyer Arafat Hosen Khan sent the notice YouTube LLC, Facebook and Meta’s representative in Bangladesh Sabhanaz Rashid Diya, the Chairman of Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (BTRC), the Director General of Digital Security Agency, and the Inspector General of Police.

“Due to the lack of regulation by the BTRC and DSA, absence of foresight and deliberate ignorance from Facebook and YouTube, various frivolous, fictitious and fake news is being widely circulated,” the legal notice read adding that such posts have violated Sections 30, 64, 76, 97A of the Bangladesh Telecommunication Act, 2001, Sections 8, 13, 16, 25 of the Digital Security Act, 2018 and Section 46 of the Information and Communication Technology Act, 2006 (as amended in 2013).

In the legal notice, the lawyer said Facebook and YouTube do not apply any supervisory mechanism or have control over their contents, especially in Bangladesh, while a large number of fake news, contents, images, and videos containing obscene and damaging presentations of political figures, intellectuals tarnish the image of the country as a nation.

It also mentioned that these posts disclose various sensitive issues relating to international policies and broadcast misleading and twisted information through various Facebook users and YouTube subscribers inside and outside Bangladesh.

The notice further read, “A vested quarter - both inside and outside Bangladesh - are purportedly circulating propaganda that highlights Bangladesh as a failed state in front of the international community and to stir turmoil inside the country.