Govt to help get back genuine FB accounts

The government yesterday said it will help genuine users get back their Facebook accounts which the social media giant blocked during its drive against fake accounts.

Posts and Telecommunications Secretary Shyam Sunder Sikder told The Daily Star that the ministry had earlier requested Facebook authorities to block fake accounts. But he said they are not sure if the current initiative has been taken as per their request.

“If the genuine users address the issue to the government, we can take steps to unblock the accounts again,” said Sikder.

Facebook authorities started blocking accounts from Friday saying, "accounts made up inauthentic likes and comments that appear to come from accounts located in Bangladesh, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia, and a number of other countries."

Following that, many Facebook users of the country in the last two days found their accounts blocked.

Echoing the secretary, Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (BTRC) Chairman Shahjahan Mahmood said they have responsibility to help the genuine account holders. However, he did not mention how they would help those who have found their accounts blocked. 

Earlier, the government requested the Facebook authorities to block fake accounts, which are mostly used for running criminal activities, spreading militancy contents, and posting defamatory comments.

Talking to journalist at her office yesterday, State Minister for Posts and Telecommunications Tarana Halim said the social media authorities have blocked the accounts on their own initiative.

Meanwhile, Facebook's move has also resulted in a "sudden fall of likes" on Facebook pages of some organisations.

Rajib Ahmed, president of e-Commerce Association of Bangladesh (e-CAB) said, “We don't want people with fake IDs to be engaged with us, but we don't want to lose real people either,” he said.Nobody could mention how many Facebook accounts were blocked. But unauthenticated sources said the number might be around one million from Bangladesh.

There are 2.6 crore Facebook accounts operating from Bangladesh, according to a report of “Digital in 2017 Global Overview” run by We Are Social and Hootsuite.