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Govt. to curb hate speech on social media
View(s):The Government will introduce regulations to curb hate speech on social media, after seeking legal advice, said Telecommunications Regulatory Commission (TRC) of Sri Lanka Chairman Austin Fernando.
“We are doing something,” he told the Sunday Times yesterday. “These gazettes cannot be done offhand, although people want us to act within 24 hours. Due process has to be followed within our system and that includes seeking input from the Attorney General’s Department. But we have to do some regulating and have discussed this also with our friends in Facebook (FB). We have to put it into legal form.”
President Maithripala Sirisena’s office collaborated directly with FB to draft a statement released by the Presidential Media Unit this week, announcing the lifting of the temporary social media ban, authoritative sources also revealed.
“The paragraph that says, ‘…anyone propagating hate speech on Facebook, is liable under Sri Lanka Law, and prompt action will be taken as per Facebook’s community standards…’, was drafted by them and approved by the President’s office,” the sources said, pointing out that the social media site accepted that stronger measures will have to be taken to curb hate speech on its platform. The statement was released as President Sirisena ordered the TRC to remove the temporary restriction to access FB and other sites. It said the Government will continue to work together with FB to prevent hate speech and misuse of the platform. It also said both sides will continue to engage extensively to discuss these matters.
“The Government restricted access to some social media platforms and messenger services in order to curtail attempts to spread communal violence across the country, misusing the social media in a manner detrimental to national harmony”, the statement said. Mr Fernando met representatives from FB this week to discuss the situation in Sri Lanka.
Meanwhile, a FB spokesman told the Sunday Times that there was no evidence that the local FB mirror server or network infrastructure may have been interfaced or compromised by Government agencies, including intelligence. Chirantha Amerasinghe, a local network engineer, raised these concerns after being told over the telephone by TRC that it was monitoring and filtering FB traffic.
Mr Amerasinghe speculated that the agencies may be using man-in-the-middle attacks, defined as “secretly relaying and possibly altering communication between two parties who believe they are directly communicating with each other”.
“I checked with my teams and there was nothing we could see to substantiate this claim,” the FB spokesman said.