Bangladesh takes crime seriously as the country is pulling all stops in order to limit what criminals can access.

According to Gizmodo, the Bangladesh government recently asked the ISPs to ban social media sites such as Facebook, WhatsApp and Viber as primary precautions. The result has been less than impressive as it caused the country's lost of internet access for merely an hour. While the ISPs followed the request, some selected traffic from the said social media sites still showed up, but with very minimal transported information. Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina said hat the main purpose of the ban is to prevent criminals from attacking, but others believe there's more to it than that.

The citizens of Bangladesh believe that their government is trying to limit the people's access to social media sites prior to the execution of Salahuddin Quader Chowdhury and Ali Ahsan Mohammad Mujahid, two prominent political leaders in the country. The government of Bangladesh is trying to avoid any uprising on social media sites that pertains to the execution, and they're using criminals as their main reason for shutting the sites down. Chowdhury and Muhajid's crime involves genocide during the 1971 war of independence against Pakistan.

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina defended the government's move by saying that criminals have taken so much advantage of social media sites that they have learned to use them for their own personal interest. Without any official announcement on when will the ban end, the people of Bangladesh are currently unable to access these sites, and in some instances that they were able to do so, it's only on the chat feature and nothing more.

Featured on the DhakaTribune, a letter signed by the BTRC assistant director said, "I am directed to instruct you to stop the Facebook, Viber and WhatsApp services in your network with immediate effect until further instructions."

DMP Joint Commissioner Md Monirul, on the other hand, told the Dhaka Tribune, "The government ordered the blocking of services on security grounds as criminals often use these services to plan and carry out subversive acts."

Although they did not declare who exactly recommended it, they addressed the issue saying several agencies are involved in making sure the citizens of Bangladesh are secured and it could be from any of those agencies.

What do you think about Bangladesh's ban on social media sites? Do you believe that they are doing it for a purpose other than preventing crime?