The government of Bangladesh has decided to unblock Facebook access. Even though the government has been more militantly aggressive with its stance on critical media projects and outlets, this outcome was inevitable. Facebook has no interest in witnessing more Muslim majority countries like Bangladesh and Pakistan block access to tens of millions of users–really, in one person, consumers and customers.
The offending content was a page that invited critics to draw pictures of the prophet Muhammad. Hardliners in Bangladesh, as in Pakistan, decried Facebook’s allowance on that content. Condemnable though that form of populist cultural criticism has always been, the government had no legitimate cause to paternalistically determine its citizens’ use of content. The majority of Bangladeshi Facebook users would rightly condemn that offensive and truly vulgar content, while making good use of Facebook’s other appealing content and resources. Perhaps more interesting, however, is the fact that the government shut down access on the grounds that sitting leaders were caricatured on the social media site.
Government control on media is an inefficient exercise that simply corks up a dam ready to come loose, come apart. For this past week pressure has been building. Today’s news releases some of that pressure. One wonders whether media savants need to be alert for new, assertive and longer lasting stresses on Bangladesh’s anemic media outlets.