Counter Hate Speech and Misinformation
Currently, Bangladesh has 103 million internet users; of those a large number is youths. Due to the surge of internet subscribers and lack of knowledge on responsible internet use, spread of hate speech and misinformation is pervasive on social media in Bangladesh. This phenomenon has lead Bangladesh in an alarming situation fostering social division, conflict, and violence.
In such context, VOICE initiates a capacity building program to foster a young group of participants including journalists, social & cultural activists, women, indigenous and minority activists, artists, filmmakers, photographers, bloggers, writers & university students through facilitating capacity and knowledge development to counter hate speech and misinformation and promote responsible use of digital space.
BACKGROUND
Bangladesh is facing huge challenges in freedom of expression, justice, rule of law, and governance, in particular. Society is completely divided and hates speech and mis/disinformation is pervasively spread, particularly, by the fundamental religious groups and divided youth groups along with political fronts. The way internet subscribers (103.85 million) skyrocketed in the last few years, the spread of hate speech and mis/dis-information rose in a similar trend. Particularly in Bangladesh there are two types of Hate Speech prevails– one is Religious hate speech and other is Political Hate Speech. Religious Hate Speech is mainly spread by Islamic clerics and Islamist groups against women of all religions. Often these hate speech escalates violence against women online and offline. Speeches of Islamic clerics spread online to millions of people due to easy access of internet mobile technology in a moment and those encourage violence against women like rape, torture, domestic violence, eve-teasing, online harassment and also often instigate violence against other religion. There are instances of fatal violence in Bangladesh in recent years against other religion which begun due to propaganda and misinformation spread online through social media. For instance, a series of attacks on Buddhist monasteries, shrines, and houses of Buddhist inhabitants in Ramu Upazila in Cox’s Bazar District took place by local mobs on the midnight past 29 September 2012. The mobs destroyed 12 Buddhist temples and monasteries and 50 houses in reaction to a tagging of an image depicting the desecration of a Quran on the timeline of a fake Facebook account under a Buddhist male name. An estimated 25,000 people participated in the violence directed and ravaged 20 Buddhist villages. Also, in October 2019 in Burhanuddin Upazila of Bhola district 4 people were killed and 100 were injured in the destructive clash between police and local mob over religious hate spread through a fake Facebook ID. Moreover, Political Hate Speech is spread by divided political groups and parties along with their youth and student fronts online and offline that instigate political violence and unrest.
In such situation, VOICE would like to build an online youth activist group including youth, journalists, social activists, women and minority activists, netizens, young artists, writers, bloggers, filmmakers, photographers, cultural activists and university students through a Capacity Building Program, so that this group can engage themselves to build an unique online platform through this website to counter hate speech and spread of misinformation. And, through the platform they will voluntarily write, make digital stories, make audio-visuals & films, do artworks and share them to counter hate speech and aware people online for responsible online behavior to limit the spread of mis/disinformation. That will foster tolerance, empathy, diversity of thoughts and opinions and in greater peace and harmony in the society.
Capacity building workshop on countering hate speech and misinformation
Workshop-1:
Held on 24-25 September 2021 at Padakhep Institute of Development & Management (PIDM)
Bangladesh is facing huge challenges in freedom of expression, justice, rule of law, and governance, in particular. Society is completely divided and hates speech and mis/disinformation is pervasively spread, particularly, by the fundamental religious groups and divided youth groups along with political fronts. There are instances of fatal violence in Bangladesh in recent years against other religion which begun due to propaganda news and misinformation spread online through social media.
In such situation, our objective was to build an online youth activist group including youth, journalists, social activists, women and minority activists, netizens, young artists, writers, bloggers, filmmakers, photographers, cultural activists and university students through a Capacity Building Program, so that this group can engage themselves to build a unique online platform to counter hate speech and spread of misinformation. And facilitate the youth group to actively engage them for advocating on counter hate speech and spread of misinformation online and promote responsible use of the internet.
This Capacity Building Workshop was facilitated and attended by Mr. Mainuddin Ahmed, Chief of Party Bangladesh, Counterpart International; Ms. Sharmin Khan, Legal Consultant at International Center, Not-for-Profit Law (ICNL) and Ms. Shameem Ara Sheuli, Program Manager, Internews Network; as special guest. This workshop was facilitated by Siam Sarower Jamil, Senior development activist; Saimum Reza Piyas, Senior Lecturer, BRAC University; Sakira Parvin, Senior Lecturer, Stamford University Bangladesh; Ahmed Swapan Mahmud, Executive Director, VOICE; Zayed Siddiki, Project Coordinator, VOICE; Abtab Khan Shawon, Media Manager, VOICE; Nahian Ahmed Shah, Program Officer, VOICE.
This workshop provided hand on training on concepts of human rights, idea of hate speech and rumors, harmful effects of hate speech and misinformation, mobile journalism, social media and fact checking, social media campaign. Besides extensive surveillance and the right to security of personal information, fourth industrial revolution and democratic values these topics were discussed among young peoples in details.
This hands-on training helped them to create countering hate speech poster and infographic, case study on hate speech cases, social media contents for awareness, mobile journalisms videos and fact checking issues and how to apply them. Another focus of this training was to make understand this young changemaker about responsible use of internet. Using the Internet responsibly is to use its resources to help develop into a better person. The information you provide should build you up, encourage you, and provide a means to help others. It should not tear you down or make any kind of violence. End on this training participants were able to make some output based on topics. Output from participant would be uploaded in counterhatespeech.net website on a continues process and this website is dedicated to workshop participants output only.
Workshop-2:
Held on 28-29 August 2021 at Padakhep Institute of Development & Management (PIDM)
Bangladesh is facing huge problem in terms of freedom of expression, justice and rule of law. We have seen many incidents regarding hate speech and in the time of Covid situation misinformation has divided our society. In terms of hate speech, religious hate speech against women is a common issue which escalates offline and online violence. Bangladesh has seen many fatal violence incidents due to propaganda news and misinformation spread online through social media.
Through this workshop our objective was to build a youth activist group and enhance their capacity that they can counter hate-speech and limit spread of mis/dis-information online. And to facilitate the youth group to actively engage them for advocating on counter hate speech and spread of misinformation online and promote responsible use of the internet.
This workshop was held at Padakhep Institute of Development & Management (PIDM) held on 28th and 29th August for two days long. This capacity building workshop was facilitated by Jyoti Chattopadhyay, Senior development activist; Saimum Reza Piyas, Senior Lecturer, BRAC University; Selim Samad, Senior Journalist; Ahmed Swapan Mahmud, Executive Director, VOICE; Zayed Siddiki, Project Coordinator, VOICE; Abtab Khan Shawon, Media Manager, VOICE.
The workshop provided hands-on training on hate speech, rumors, social media campaigns against misinformation, mobile journalism, content creation, and fact-checking techniques. Besides, Artificial Intelligence, big data, digital democracy, data protection were also discussed in different sessions.
This hands-on training helped them to create countering hate speech poster and infographic, case study on hate speech cases, social media contents for awareness, mobile journalisms videos and fact checking issues and how to apply them. Another focus of this training was to make understand this young changemaker about responsible use of internet. Using the Internet responsibly is to use its resources to help develop into a better person. The information you provide should build you up, encourage you, and provide a means to help others. It should not tear you down or make any kind of violence. End on this training participants were able to make some output based on topics. Outputs from participants are uploaded in counterhatespeech.net website on a continuous process and this website will be contributed by the youth activists.
PHOTOS FROM WORKSHOPS
VISUAL CONTENT
ABOUT VOICE & ITS SIMILAR INITIATIVES
VOICE’s mission is to build a pluralist society drawing on the interactions, choices and power of indigenous cultures and resources. Therefore, VOICE continuously works on issues related to Freedom of Expression, hate speech, countering mis/disinformation and on greater human rights issues through networking, engagement and partnership approach engaging different stakeholders through dialogues, building their capacities through training and workshops.
VOICE has potential experience of implementing projects on Freedom of Expression, Hate speech and spread of misinformation including capacity and skill development training for journalists and citizen journalists. In 2018 (April-December) VOICE implemented a project titled “Assessment of Freedom of Expression Online in Bangladesh: Analysing Regulatory Frameworks and Advocacy for Strengthening Online Expression” supported by APC. From 2019 VOICE has implemented a project titled “Strengthening and Monitoring the Scenario of Freedom of Expression for Promoting Human Rights in Bangladesh” funded by UNDP. Under this project VOICE has experience of conducting skill development training for 100 journalists in Mymensingh and Jamalpur. Moreover, under the same project recently VOICE has conducted two capacity building workshops for journalists and young writers on “Responsible use of internet and freedom of expression: Hate speech, content blocking and censorship”. And, in 2020 VOICE has implemented a project on misinformation and communication crisis during COVID 19 titled “Strengthening and Monitoring the Scenario of Freedom of Expression for Promoting Human Rights in Bangladesh” funded by APC. Also, VOICE has implemented a project on Freedom of Expression in 2013 funded by Foreign and Commonwealth Organization (FCO).