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META, which owns social media platform Facebook, on May 30 said that it had recently removed 50 accounts and 98 pages directly or indirectly linked with the ruling Awami League ‘for coordinated inauthentic behaviour’, including the criticism of the opposition before the January 7 elections. The attempts at manipulating public debate before the national elections creates grounds to question the government’s commitment to contain disinformation and fake news online. The pages and accounts, as Meta says, were posting contents on current events in Bangladesh, including elections, criticism of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party, allegations of BNP’s corruption and its role in pre-election violence as well as supportive commentary about the incumbents and their role in the technological development of Bangladesh. Using fictitious news entities or fake identities, account holders and pages associated with the ruling party and the Centre for Research Information conducted a covert public debate influence operation, according to an internal Meta investigation. The campaign of disinformation was presumably meant to sway public opinions about the national elections or voting behaviour. While Facebook removed the accounts and pages, the government took no action against such online disinformation campaigns, which is, keeping to the Cyber Security Act, a criminal offence.
Since the Awami League assumed office in 2009, it has repeatedly expressed its commitment to control fake news and enacted the controversial cyber security legislation. The information minister on World Press Freedom Day in May iterated the government’s position when he said that disinformation and misinformation have become a threat to humanity and the government would stop them by all means. The Awami League’s central publicity and publications secretary, however, said that it had no information on such covert operation to manipulate public debate on social media platforms. The Meta action also questions the role of the cybercrime unit of the police. The police, criticised for taking action against school-going teenage boys for criticising the government, having so done while monitoring online public activity, could not identify a page with 3.4 million followers circulating fake news targeting opposition supporters and dissenters. Centre for Governance Studies research found that in 2018–2023, politicians accounted for 32 per cent and journalists 29.40 per cent of the people prosecuted under the Digital Security Act and 78 per cent of the plaintiffs had affiliation with the ruling party. The inaction of the government and law enforcement agencies, therefore, suggests a partisan application of the law and a selective commitment to fight disinformation.
The Awami League and the government it presides over appear in need of a course correction in issues concerning digital space governance. They must take the public threat report of Meta seriously, abandon the strategy of selective application of the laws and act against all involved in running the covert operation to manipulate opinions before the elections.