Facebook ban temporary

Experts try to take 'offensive contents' off the site

MD Hasan and Rizanuzzaman Laskar

Social networking site Facebook, blocked by the government, is expected to be back on in a couple of days, officials said yesterday.
The site could be unblocked by Tuesday once offensive contents are taken off the site, said high-ups of the country's two IIG (international internet gateway) service providers.
Regulators blocked access to Facebook after satiric images of political leaders were posted on the site. Part of the reason was the uploading of anti-Islamic content about Prophet Hazrat Muhammad (SM).
The government move came after its technical experts failed to remove the offensive contents from the site.
Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission on Saturday asked the IIG service providers to block the website.
"BTRC engineers tried in vain to block access to the links to the pictures. The website [Facebook] had to be blocked," said Post and Telecommunications Secretary Sunil Kanti Bose.
BTRC with the help of IIG service providers tried to block the contents by using DPI (deep packet inspection) in data handlers -- a method similar to applying a filter to the server to block unwanted contents. But it did not