The Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (BTRC) says it is not all-powerful to control social media contents.
Social media platforms like Facebook and YouTube often do not respond to Bangladesh's requests to remove contents from their platforms.
However, the BTRC is planning to make its grip tighter on the social media. To do so, it is getting equipped to increase its surveillance.
"We've taken some steps to boost our capacity, and I won't disclose everything now," BTRC chairman Shyam Sunder Sikder told a press conference at Dhaka office on Sunday.
Replying to a query, Mr Sikder says he feels that social networks should be brought under surveillance and some steps have been taken to this end.
Some of the steps include setting the telecoms monitoring system in the BTRC and strengthening its cyber cell, he adds.
"We don't have such monitoring capacity at this moment to watch the social media 24/7," he said replying to a question.
"We're working on it and the telecommunication monitoring system will be set up in my office by next February or March," Mr Sikder said.
The system will strengthen the regulator to increase its surveillance of the social media.
The BTRC chief further said that they would amplify capacity of the cyber cell by adding more equipment soon to monitor the social media twenty-four seven.
However, post and telecoms minister Mustafa Jabbar at the briefing says the BTRC is not responsible for monitoring social networks.
Social media surveillance is the job of law-enforcement agencies as per the digital security act, he adds.
"The BTRC only works as per their requests," he mentioned.
Mr Jabbar says the government is "helpless" in removing defamatory contents from social media platforms.
"The BTRC doesn't have the power and capability to block any content from these platforms. So, it's unfair to blame the BTRC for not removing these contents."
According to the BTRC documents supplied at the programme, Facebook has removed only 25.95-per cent contents on the BTRC's requests and YouTube only 14.39 per cent.
The minister says Facebook and YouTube have different community standards than that of the Bangladesh government.
"So, they don't follow all our requests," he added.
