Staff Reporter:
Bangladesh and Italy will work together to fight disinformation campaign through social media that lures the common people to choose the illegal path to migrate into Europe.
State Minister for Information and Broadcasting Mohammad Ali Arafat and Italian Ambassador to Bangladesh Antonio Alessandro reached this agreement at a meeting at the state minister’s office in Bangladesh Secretariat here this afternoon.
“Human traffickers carry out disinformation campaign on social media to lure people over migra-tion to European countries through illegal channels. As a result, they are exposed to danger and even fall into life risk,” Arafat told reporter, emerging from the meeting.
Not only immigration seekers, but also people in different other sectors also fall the victims to that disinformation campaign, he said, adding, “Therefore, we talked how we can effectively address the problem together”.
Noting that Italy will share their laws and regulations over tackling the disinformation campaign, the state minister said, “We will fully support each other to combat the disinformation campaign and make the people aware so that they don’t pay attention to the campaign as it leads to human trafficking”.
Pointing out that misinformation is not a matter of politics; Arafat said many women and children also become victims of misinformation in urban and rural areas.
“Some fall into risk by choosing the illegal way of migration. Therefore, there is a necessity of co-ordination among the government, local stockholders and foreign missions in Bangladesh regard-ing the flow of correct information,” he added.
Replying to a question over this year’s World Press Freedom Index of the RSF’s (Reporters without Borders), the state minister said the report has many methodological weaknesses.
“I had sent a letter to the RSF showing their methodological weakness in their 2023 report and they acknowledged the mistakes and corrected the data,” he added.
