Social media site Facebook might be blocked again and if needed internet could be also shut down to save the state and citizens of the country, ICT and Telecom Minister Mustafa Jabbar said today.

“The first priority is the security of the state and its people and we have to sacrifice the small for the greater interest,” Jabbar said replying to a query on the issue after inaugurating an international roundtable conference in Dhaka.

He said at present the government has no filtering solution for social media contents.

“We have no filtering system in Facebook as the social networking giant runs with the community standard following the law of the United States.”

The government can only request Facebook to drop any content, but they cannot ensure the total security depending on Facebook, the minister added.

Jabbar said the government is implementing a project for “digital security” which would also secure the social networking platforms.

“Department of Telecom is entrusted to implement the project, and it would make us fully capable to do ‘content filtering’ or look into the aspects to come up with what would be required,” the minister added.