Despite having 13 million users, Facebook does not even have contact office in Nepal

On April 4, American news portal ‘Kansasar Reflector’ published an article titled – If Facebook fails, local news media will become more important in the future.

Following the publication of the article written by Dave Kendall, Facebook removed all the posts linking to ‘Kansasar Reflector’.

The article was blocked on Facebook and Threads within a few minutes.

‘Kansasar Reflector’ on April 6 tweeted on its official X (former Twitter) about the article that was blocked on Facebook.

In response, Meta director Andy Stone claimed that the links were blocked due to a security problem.

Stone said similar problems were encountered while sharing the articles published by Newsroom and Marsia Kabas.

Marisa Kabas on April 5 had written an article titled ‘Meta doesn’t want to see articles like this’.

Facebook blocked that article as well. Later, Meta apologized for the same.

Dave Kendell had written a critical article about Facebook. That is why, Facebook blocked the article from being shared.

After Facebook blocked the article written by Dave Kendell for a few hours, journalist Marisa Kabas also started raising internal issues of Facebook by exposing the same topic.

Facebook blocked even that as well. But the interesting part was that the problem was resolved within 24 hours. In response, Meta company apologized.

Response on the basis of government policy

Facebook blocks the articles written against it. That is why only good things about Facebook come out.

The aforementioned two articles are the examples that are blocked by Facebook.

Though the two problems are resolved, the algorithm of Facebook is prepared in such a way that it automatically blocks articles written against Facebook.

Though the algorithm of Facebook blocks the critical articles, this is not implemented in all the countries.

Local media and the general public have been facing these kinds of problems in weak countries like Nepal.

Many have raised their voices, but Facebook has not given interest to solve it.

The government has no idea where to raise this kind of issue.

Experts have pointed out that Facebook will play a role to affect the security policy of Nepal in the future.

The powerful countries like the US, the UK, Denmark, India and the UAE have been regulating Facebook in various ways.

That is why the users of these countries do not have any fear. But in the context of Nepal, there is fear everywhere.

Social media plays an important role during the elections. In the context of Nepal, if we talk about social media, Facebook comes first in the list.

Out of total internet users, 94 percent use Facebook.

Facebook can easily spread rumours during the election and can assassinate the character of the people.

Cyber Bureau is the only place where we can complain about the issue in Nepal. But the Cyber Bureau was established to investigate criminal activities reported from social media and take action.

Now, the Ministry of Communication and Information Technology is preparing to form a separate agency to regulate social media.

At first, the ministry is listing the social media networks. But no proposal has been floated to solve the problems of Facebook, which has 94 percent users in Nepal.

In other countries, Facebook solves the problems posted by local media within a few hours. Facebook even apologised if needed.

News of theft and hacking through social media has been heard for years in Nepal. But the problems have not been solved until a big incident occurs.

The only reason for that Meta does not have its office or representative in Nepal.

The Nepal government should think about this issue in a serious way.

Problems are not being solved even by Facebook’s help support

When the users face problems in their account and page, they send email on Facebook’s website but they never not get the reply.

Facebook, however, provides help and support to all the users for response within 48 hours.

When the users face problems in their account or page, they can take the help of ‘help and support’. This facility is provided to all the users.

Surendra Singh, an IT engineer who had studied the problems of Facebook for a long time, said that the problems heard from the ‘help and support’ are not addressed fully.

He himself took around seven months to recover his Facebook page, which had more than 25,000 followers, from the hands of a hacker.

Though I had become successful in getting back my Facebook page, the sites logged in by the hacker have not been removed yet.

Facebook’s irresponsibility and government’s weak policy

On October 11, 2023, the official page of ‘Janakpur Today, an online news portal was hacked. The Facebook page had 65,000 likes and 75,000 followers

After the page was hacked, the hacker started posting nude videos by changing the name.

Necessary help was sought from Facebook Company Meta to experts, but the problem was not solved.

Chief Editor of Janakpur Today Brijkumar Yadav filed a complaint at the Cyber ​​Bureau.

‘Community Guidelines’ of Facebook blocked even the general news published by ‘Janakpur Today’.

In March, Lokantar.Com wrote a status on Facebook stating that there was a problem in sharing news in Facebook and the news shared on Facebook are being deleted automatically.

In January, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg apologized to the families of the victims of his platform during a parliamentary hearing in the US Parliament.

Experts have pointed out that the government should formulate a strict policy to make Facebook responsible and accountable.

A small country like Nepal has not been able to take such a step.

However, smaller countries than Nepal have brought policy, because of which they have not been facing the problems.

For example, only 450, 000 people use Facebook in Israel while Nepal has twice the number of 13 million users.

Facebook is compelled to establish a Meta Company office in Israel which has less Facebook users than Nepal.

Meta Company has also established an office in the UAE which has 650, 000 Facebook users due to the UAE government’s strict policy.

Not only that, the UAE has banned Meta Company’s social network ‘WhatsApp’.

Meta offices have been established in three places of India, Nepal’s neighbouring country, Hyderabad, Mumbai and Bangalore.

Only ad agencies of Meta Company are active in Nepal. Meta Company takes millions of rupees from Nepal through ad agencies. But there are no representatives of Meta Company in Nepal to hear the problems.

Facebook’s parent company ‘Meta’ has 62 branch offices in the world.