Attempt to close YouTube channel of Bangladeshi dissident in France part of ongoing conspiracy to break US law.

The Bangladesh government has a problem, one common to many authoritarian governments. While they can easily control dissent from within their own country, it is more difficult to do so when it is coming from outside.

Though it remains easy for the Bangladeshi authorities to block criticism from abroad when it is published on a website — as they can simply stop it being accessed from inside the country — it is not so straightforward when the content is posted from one of the large social media platforms like YouTube or Facebook.

This is because, technically, it is not possible for the government to block a single YouTube or Facebook account or URL. The only way it can remove specific accounts is to block the whole social media platform – and because of the huge popularity of these social media websites, this is not politically feasible.

It is this conundrum that has led to the government to propose introducing new law & policies that will require social media platforms to act as political censors. However, it remains unclear whether social media platforms will be willing to become, in effect, censors for an authoritarian state.

So until the day comes when social media companies are willing to subordinate themselves in this way, the country’s authoritarian agencies have two techniques which they deploy to silence critics abroad.

The first is the use of repression — that is, the arrest, intimidation, or harassment of the Bangladesh-based family members of the person who is responsible for publishing the content abroad. Note for example the the harassment of Tasnim Khalil's mother {Editor in Chief, Netra News), Pinaki Bhattacharya's family and the arrest and seven months detention of Kanak Sarwar’s Sister.

The government’s other strategy is — using intelligence agencies or ruling party contractors — to make fake copyright claims to internet service providers or social media platforms requiring them to remove content and close websites or YouTube channels set up by expatriate Bangladeshis.

Read Full article on- https://netra.news/2022/attempt-to-close-youtube-channel-of-bangladeshi-dissident-in-france-part-of-ongoing-conspiracy-to-break-us-law/