Staff Reporter :The government of Bangladesh has issued a social media guideline for its employees, with a view to ensuring transparency and accountability in governance by using the Information and Communications Technology.The Cabinet Division issued directives in this regard on Sunday. The guideline has also encouraged the public servants to use the social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, You Tube and other applications for highlighting their success and achievements at workplace.As per directives given in the guideline, the public servants could use social networking sites for seven official purposes including communication and view exchange, analysing problems and solution, creating public awareness and campaign, easing public services, making decisions, ensuring usage of public friendly administration and resolving complaints of service receivers.The directive pointed out that 42 per cent of the global population uses the internet and 29 per cent of them use social media sites. Almost 80 per cent internet users in Bangladesh are using social media sites. More than 800 government offices already use social media sites. And the numbers of social network users will increase in the future, the guideline noted.The latest government measure followed the use of social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter by many public servants, especially in view of the sensitivity of some contents and comments on the sites to which they are connected.According to the official guideline, the government employees have scopes to open personal accounts but they have to act responsibly, and follow social teaching. At the same time, they will have to be cautious to select friends in social media.The directives, however, elaborates that the government employees must maintain the service conduct rules while sharing their information on social networking platforms.The guideline further stated that the government offices or its employees can create a number of accounts on different social media platforms for strengthening the interpersonal communication at workplaces.Rewards have been also offered for the best post, comment and for opening a page that becomes popular either in highlighting the government’s achievements or for tackling civic issues.Some instructions need to be followed by the government officials to open their personal accounts in social networks including obeying the guidelines and acting as responsible citizens online, being cautious of selecting online friends and contents, avoiding unnecessary tagging and referencing.The guideline asked government offices to ensure their pages are updated at least twice every week and cautions against uploading contents against national unity or spreading hatred towards any community, either religious or ethnic.As per directives, the government officers are asked to appoint an individual or form a 3 to 5 member moderator panel to operate pages on social media. It also asked government offices to evaluate their social media usage every three months.
