Chief Adviser Prof Muhammad Yunus on Thursday urged Meta to step up efforts to tackle misinformation and fake news being spread through Facebook in Bangladesh.
Dr Yunus said "oligarchs and politicians" linked to the "toppled dictatorship of Sheikh Hasina" siphoned off tens of billions of dollars from Bangladesh during her 15 years of rule.
"These people are now spending their fortune to spread lies and misinformation about Bangladesh," the Chief Adviser told Sir Nick Clegg, the head of global affairs at Meta, on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum annual meeting in the Swiss city, reports UNB.
Clegg is also a former deputy prime minister of the United Kingdom.
Probir Mehta, Director of Policy Planning of Meta; Lamiya Morshed, SDGs Affairs Principal Coordinator; and Ambassador Tareq Md Ariful Islam, Bangladesh's Permanent Representative in Geneva, also joined the meeting.
When Facebook launched in 2004, it changed the way people connect. Apps like Messenger, Instagram and WhatsApp further empowered billions around the world.
Now, Meta is moving beyond 2D screens toward immersive experiences like augmented, virtual and mixed reality to help build the next evolution in social technology.
Clegg said Facebook would continue to do fact-checking and digital verification in Bangladesh as it is an important country, with its population the world's eighth largest, Chief Adviser's Deputy Press Secretary Abul Kalam Azad Majumder told UNB.
Meta's decision to stop fact-checking in the United States would not be applicable for Bangladesh and countries in Europe, he said.
He said Facebook would likely scale up its digital verification service in Bangladesh and would explore ways to do fact checking by users -- similar to the operation of Wikipedia.
During the half-an-hour-long meeting, Clegg also offered Meta's expertise in drafting a new cybersecurity laws. "We have a lot of experience here," he said.
The Meta global affairs chief said Llama, the company's recently launched open-sourced large language model AI, could help revolutionise health care, farming and education.
He hoped it would be popular among the users in Bangladesh.
Prof Yunus asked Meta to organise month-long training programs on Llama in Bangladesh. "It will open up new opportunities for Bangladesh's young people," he said.
Bd-pratidin English/Lutful Hoque
