Dhaka, 9 Oct – State Minister for Information Tarana Halim has said that the newly formed ‘Rumour Identification Cell’ will start its function from this month (October) to detect rumours in different social networking sites.“After getting the contents of rumour, the cell will send it to the telecommunications ministry, Bangladesh Telecommunications Regulatory Commission (BTRC). At the same time, we will send it to the news media for informing the matter to the people,” she told reports at a press briefing at her secretariat office yesterday.
“We will send a letter to the A2i project of the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO), counter-terrorism unit of the police and different intelligence agencies to inform the content of rumour to the cell after identifying from different sites in social media,” she said.
The information state minister informed that the members of the intelligence agencies will visit the spot of the concerned sites of media to identify the rumours and then it would be informed to the
cell.
“The cell will send the content of rumours to the news media for informing the people by publishing these and also sent to BTRC for taking action,” she said.
“There are about 300 pages in the social media were conducting propaganda against the government,” she added.
Tarana Halim informed that the cell will work to know the rumours only, not against freedom of speech.
She urged the news media to not use the information from different social media as the news source.
The 9-member rumour identification cell has formed headed by a high official of the Press Information Department (PID).
On September 12, Tarana Halim had said that the government has taken an initiative to set up a monitoring cell ahead of the next general election aiming to identify rumours in social networking sites.
“The cell will also inform the media about the truth,” she had said. – Staff Reporter
