A legal notice has been sent to Mark Zuckerberg, Chief Executive Officer of Meta, and four others demanding necessary steps to prevent the abuse and misuse of social media Facebook.
The notice also asked the respondents to take necessary steps to regulate Facebook's activities in Bangladesh without any delay. "Otherwise, legal shelter of the appropriate court would be taken without any further reference," it warned.
The chairman of Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission, secretary of posts, telecommunication and information technology ministry, senior secretary of public security division of home ministry, director general of digital security agency and Mark Zuckerberg have been asked to comply with the notice within three days.
Barrister Tapas Kanti Baul, a Supreme Court lawyer, sent the notice on behalf of four persons-Saleem Samad, Dr SM Masum Billah, Advocate George Chowdhury and Victor Ray.
According to the notice, a Facebook post on October 13 in 2021 claimed that Hindus dishonoured the holy Quran by placing it on a Durga Puja pavilion. Reportedly, videos and photos of the holy Quran kept at a Durga Puja pavilion in Cumilla were circulated widely on social media mostly on Facebook.
These types of misinformation and disinformation went viral on Facebook and resulted in creation and posting of hate speech and other contents, which the notice recipients have failed to stop or control. As a result of such misinformation and disinformation and hate speech, communal attacks on the establishments of the Hindu people in Bangladesh took place in 27 districts of the country from October 13 to November 1.
Addressing the respondents, the lawyer also said, "The notice recipients failed to take any action to curb the spread of the aforesaid contents on time and due to your inaction, the religious and communal harmony in Bangladesh was shattered."
"Earlier, similar incidents took place in different parts of Bangladesh, using Facebook. Notice recipients completely failed to control Facebook, and force Facebook, now Meta, to open an office in Bangladesh and make them obey fundamental rights enshrined in the Constitution of Bangladesh and existing laws of Bangladesh," he added.
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