Facebook has hired Bangladeshi experts who understand the Bangla language, culture, and market to combat the spread of hate speech and extremist ideology through its platform in the country.
Nawab Osman, Asia Pacific head of counter-terrorism and dangerous organisations at Facebook's parent company Meta, revealed the information in a virtual meeting on Monday, reports bdnews24.com.
"What is being seen in the case of Bangladesh on our platform [Facebook] is a reflection of the offline reality here [Bangladesh]," he said.
Facing questions from journalists, he admitted that more action from the social media company is required to prevent extremism in the country.
“Meta is taking various steps to increase tolerance among users, including the civil society,” he said.
Nawab also claimed that Meta's own technology and algorithms are playing an important role to combat extremism.
Recent incidents of violence in Bangladesh, sometimes deadly, fuelled by hate speech spread through Facebook and targeting religious minorities in most cases, have called into question the global tech giant's role in preventing extremism.
Facebook has about 45 million users in the country of 160 million people, according to market analyst firm Statista.
