A report titled “Hits and Misses: An Examination of Meta’s Political Ad Policy Enforcement in Bangladesh” by Digitally Right in December last year found that Facebook pages with political endorsements spent about $65,142 on political ads over one year.
The report highlighted that BNP’s official public relations page, BNP Media Cell, was the top spender among declared political pages, investing $9,751 in promoting their ads and content (The Daily Star, December 25, 2023).
It also criticized Meta’s inadequate detection of undeclared political ads.
Civil society members and journalists have pointed out that according to a recent report by Meta on Bangladesh, the accounts and pages it took action against spent only $60. They also raised concerns about content containing “disinformation” and “incitement of violence” shared from BNP’s verified pages that did not face any consequences.
The Awami League Web Team said the report “failed to substantiate claims on alleged involvement of AL and CRI on the pages” and referring to the substantial amount spent by BNP Media Cell to promote their content, questioned whether Facebook’s “lack of objectivity” was driven by “financial gains”.
The AL Web Team also accused Meta of "ineffective management" of hate speech and disinformation, both in Bangladesh and globally. They pointed out numerous failures by Facebook authorities to adhere to guidelines.
Minority leaders, civil society members, families of war heroes and martyrs have frequently complained about Facebook's failure to curb hate speech and incitement of communal violence in Bangladesh.
Senior journalist Gazi Nasiruddin Ahmed echoed these concerns. "We have not seen Facebook issuing a single report to stop hate speech or calls to incite violence, yet this report puts all the blame squarely on AL. That is shoddy work, not based on fairness," Ahmed said.
Ahmed also criticized the report for “favoring BNP’s narrative.” “It shows Facebook wants to uphold BNP’s narrative of absolving Tarique Rahman from his past crimes, including major corruption identified and corroborated by international agencies. This is shocking," he said.
BNP’s rallies before the last national election, which included slogans inciting violence, were live-streamed on Facebook without any action taken by the platform, Ahmed added. "Now, the platform seems to be on a mission to stop circulation of content that exposes BNP’s lies," he remarked.
The Facebook page of The Road to Democracy, a publication of BNP’s Media Cell, posted a photo of Rana Dasgupta, general secretary of the country’s largest minority unity council, with the caption: “Religious and ethnic minorities are not leaving the country, they are being forced to leave the country. He showed disappointment because Awami League did not implement the minority-friendly promises.” Posted in March, it still remains on the page.
When his attention was drawn to the post, the minority community leader expressed shock at the “unchecked freedom enjoyed by BNP to spread such disinformation on Facebook.”
“For decades, BNP-Jamaat stoked communal violence,” he said. The key objective of the post misquoting him is to “reverse historic facts and mislead the global audience,” Dasgupta said.
In January this year, media reports pointed out that BNP’s social media platforms were “circulating disinformation.”
A January 18, 2024 report by Somoy TV stated: “Soon after the story of an arson attack on a moving train was reported days ahead of the polls, BNP tried to shift the blame on Awami League.” A post on BNP Media Cell’s verified Facebook page, dated January 5, 2024, reads: “We strongly condemn the arson attacks. The AL regime must stop its false-flag operations and sabotages.”
The Somoy TV report also added, “Political observers say the decision-makers of foreign governments should not pay heed to any information peddled by the verified handles of the party.”
On October 28, 2023, a video surfaced on social media showing a man in BNP’s Nayapaltan office. Sitting next to BNP leader Ishraq Hossain, the man, Mian Arefy, introduced himself as an “advisor to US President Joe Biden,” and even went as far as to claim that the US president was “in full favor of restoration of the caretaker government.”
Video of Arefy sitting at BNP office, surrounded by party leaders, was widely circulated on Facebook by pro BNP and Jamaat netizens claiming that Arefy, “on behalf of Biden,” came to BNP’s party office to support their cause to overthrow the government.
