FBCCI President Md. Jashim Uddin speaking at a seminar titled ``Regulation of Digital, Social Media and OTT Platforms: The need to strike the right balance" organized by FBCCI at its office in Dhaka on Saturday.
Entrepreneurs working with Digital, social media and OTT platform demanded industry friendly regulation so that this new media can harness the potential of the new avenue of economic opportunities. They made this demand at the seminar titled ``Regulation of Digital, Social Media and OTT Platforms: The need to strike the right balance" organized by FBCCI on Saturday at FBCCI, says a press release. They said, digital platforms come with new opportunities of creative production, employment, and showcasing country's culture globally. Hence, the regulation should not be regulatory rather should facilitate the growth of the industry. They also fear that the two different regulations prepared by the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting and the Ministry of Post, Telecommunications and Information Technology might contradict each other while implementing. Responding to the concerns, minister for Post, Telecommunications and Information Technology said, the two ministries have different areas of supervision and there is no scope of conflict in future.
The minister also favors the regulation and said Facebook and Youtube run on the USA based community standard in many cases are not suitable for Bangladesh. The minister said the home network of 5G will be launched in January. Secretary of the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, Md. Mokbul Hossain said two different ministries prepared different guidelines by the direction of the court. Earlier, FBCCI President Md. Jashim Uddin urged the policy makers not to hinder the growth of the new potential sectors. He also stressed the need to further distinguish the scope of monitoring of the two ministries. He called for grabbing the digital opportunities upholding the country's very own culture to global platforms. FBCCI Senior Vice President Mostofa Azad Chowdhury Babu praised the minister for successful use of information technology during the Covid 19 pandemic. The keynote presented by Barrister Rashna Imam came up with the recommendations of soft regulation and self-regulation of the platforms and also more soft punitive measures. She also called for securing net neutrality. In panel discussion, FBCCI Director Syed Almas Kabir said the global OTT Platform market size is of $178 billion which will reach $275 billion by 2027. Therefore, to strengthen Bangladesh's position in this market, the regulation must facilitate the local companies. BTRC DG (System and Services) Brig. Gen. Md Nasim Parvez said, regulation is drafted with the aim of securing compliance In the end, BTRC discussed with 61 organizations including Facebook and Tiktok. The agency also went through the Indian and New Zealand's regulations, the DG said adding digital platform to be registered with BTRC should pay no cost. The Managing Director of Asia Internet Coalition Jeff Paine urged the government to analyze the economic impact of the new regulation before implementing. Meta Bangladesh Public Policy Head Sabhanaz Rashid Diya demanded different regulation for curated and un-curated content providers. The Executive Editor of Dhaka Tribune Reaz Ahmad called for reducing the level of punishment in the regulation drafted.
