Transparency International Bangladesh (TIB) has called for cancelling the proposed draft for digital and social media describing it as unconstitutional, deterrent, contradictory and unenforceable.
Rejecting the draft “Regulation for Digital, Social Media and OTT Platforms”, TIB also demanded that a new draft in this regard should be prepared with the help of concerned stakeholders and experts.
Terming several sections of the draft regulation as unconstitutional, TIB has claimed that there were serious flaws in the draft regulation for digital, social media and OTT platforms.
In a statement sent to the media on Thursday, the anti-graft watchdog agency said in addition, there is scope for arbitrary interpretation and misuse of the law in a few other sections, which are likely to be used to silence the people.
Besides, TIB said that the way has been paved to force the concerned service- providers to violate the privacy of the public by bringing them under an unreasonable policy framework.
Terming the draft regulation as questionable, restrictive and contradictory, TIB Executive Director Dr Iftekharuzzaman in the statement said some rules have been made to discourage the foreign investment which is unnecessary to amend.
However, he demanded the cancellation of the new draft and the formation of it afresh with the help of related stakeholders and experts in the sector.
The proposed draft has had a serious lack of knowledge and wisdom related to the subject, Dr Zaman said, adding that the effectiveness of the regulation is not limited to the borders of Bangladesh.
The words like ‘internet service providers’, ‘services’ and ‘application’ are not clearly defined. The draftsmen did not realise properly that they had made a fundamentally flawed definition of specialised services, he stated.
“It seems that they were trying to measure everything to regulate multiple services together, even though they were completely different in terms of usage, technology and operation, ” he said.
TIB also said that several sections of the draft would severely curtail the freedom of speech and force service providers to practice self-censorship.
The condition of end-to-end encryption must be broken in order to comply with the traceability of the message or the identification of the source, which infringes on the constitutionally- recognised rights to the privacy of personal communication, it stated.
This will put journalists, dissidents and rights activists at higher and extra risk, it said, adding that the lack of legal protections for intermediaries and the provision of fines for their employees will also encourage self-censorship, TIB added.
