The Sri Lankan prime minister, Ranil Wickremesinghe this week stressed that monitoring of social media was a necessity in order to tackle hate speech.
The government was criticised earlier this month after it prohibited access to social media sites in the aftermath of anti-Muslim attacks by Sinhala mobs in Kandy.
"Some form of patrolling of social media is necessary to prevent the spread of hate speech in the country," Mr Wickremesinghe said at a ceremonry inaugurating the 24th president of the Bar Association of Sri Lanka (BASL), the Sunday Times reported.
"Unfortunately, the last few years have seen the emergence of a hate culture. A hate culture that is being spread via social media, in which the Muslims have been targeted,” he said, adding that "even if legislation is enacted, enforcement may well be a problem."