The Election Commission is weighing the idea of imposing restrictions on the election campaigns on social media especially those malicious and hate ones directed towards a particular candidate.
The EC is now working on a proposal to amend the electoral code in a bid to stop such hate campaign against any candidate before the vote.
According to the proposal, there cannot be any polls campaign on Facebook, Twitter and other social media platforms before polls symbols are allocated.
It says no one can 'disrespect' a candidate in the campaign on the social media or through mobile-phone SMS.
An EC official, requesting anonymity, has said the commission’s legal affairs committee recently spoke in favour of considering the proposal.
The proposal put up no objection to campaign through local cable TV commercials.
It also says the candidates can run the campaign through newspapers, electronic media or internet-based media outlets.
EC Additional Secretary Mokhlesur Rahman admitted they were thinking about the proposal ahead of the next parliamentary elections, but added it was at the ‘rudimentary stage’.
“We are thinking about it. But no such proposal has been presented at the commission as yet. So, the time has not come to say that there is a move to block social media campaign,” he said.
The BNP, which is very critical of the current EC, alleges the commission is ‘following a government prescription to create a dark law in the name of changing the electoral code for holding one-sided elections’.
BNP Senior Joint Secretary General Ruhul Kabir Rizvi said on Thursday the EC move aimed to ‘cut the free flow of information to conceal government manipulation’.
Election observers say it will be a challenge for the EC to control polls campaign on the social media, but stressed monitoring to stop the malicious campaign against any candidate.
“Even the developed countries cannot monitor it properly. And questions may be raised if steps are taken to block the campaign (on the social media),” said Abdul Alim, a director at the Election Working Group or EWG, a platform of polls observers.
He said there were options in the existing law on taking steps against the malicious campaign against any polls candidate.
No instigative comment hurting a candidate’s gender, community, religious sensibilities or one aimed at character assassination is allowed in the current code of conduct.
According to bdnews24, Alim also said a strong team would be needed for monitoring malicious posts on the social media and so the EC must consider its capability before making a move on the front.
A similar issue was discussed before the 10th parliamentary election, but the Kazi Rakibuddin Ahmad-led EC did not pick it up.
In 2013, the EC’s capability was questioned in parliament for its ‘failure’ to stop ‘abuse of religion’ or malicious campaign’ during the elections to five city corporations.
The current EC headed by KM Nurul Huda organised civic polls to Rangpur and Comilla where the social media were used unhindered on a large scale for campaign.
