Women politicians attacked more on Facebook

Centering the twelfth national elections held last 7 January, women politicians have faced more attacks on Facebook. Of them, women politicians of BNP have been the targetted 10 times more than those of Awami League. Apart from them, journalists, analysts and celebrities have also fallen victim to various harassment.

This information has been published in a study of Tech Global Institute, a Canada-based international research organisation on technological rights. The study titled “From homophobia to assault: The gendered landscape of Bangladesh’s political disinformation” was published last 11 June.

The study collected all public posts from different Facebook pages and groups along with the interactions on them between 1 December 202 and 15 January 2024. Contents that were incorrect or fabricated have been labeled as misinformation, while materials that were distorted have been marked as disinformation.

It has been stated in the research that an analysis of 25,000 Facebook contents revealed how disinformation about women was created and spread centering the national elections.

In these contents, they have been attacked through misuse of intimate photographs, doxing (using personal information posted by someone with malicious intent including the creation of fake ID), trolling, creating deep fake photographs without consent, annoying and sexual harassment.

Plus, various gender based words and attributes have been used in these contents to humiliate, disgrace and harass political opponents, journalists and rights activists.  

The top ten women on the list of being victimised by these attacks are BNP organising secretary Shama Obaid, BNP national executive committee member Rumeen Farhana, acting BNP chairman Tarique Rahman’s daughter Zaima Rahman, prime minister and Awami League president Sheikh Hasina, BNP chairperson Khaleda Zia and her granddaughter (late Arafat Rahman’s daughter) Zafia Rahman, Dhaka district BNP general secretary Nipun Roy Chowdhury, Jatiyatabadi Mohila Dal general secretary Sultana Ahmed, former Awami League MP singer Momtaz Begum, ousted member of Awami League sub-committee on women affairs Helena Jahangir and BNP central committee joint secretary Nilufar Chowdhury Moni.

Apart from them, Mina Farah as the only woman among analysts has fallen victim to attacks more. She is known as a critique of the ruling party. Actress Mahiya Mahi has also fallen victim to major harassment. Meanwhile, prime minister’s daughter Saima Wazed faced a degree of attacks as well.

Chief of staff at Tech Global Institute and a gender expert Fowzia Afroz told Prothom Alo that women participation in politics is already quite low in the country. The conservative culture and social behavior discourage women to get involved in politics.

The spread of disinformation on top of that creates a threat of women’s participation in politics growing even slimmer. Marginal people of the electoral area have less knowledge of technology. They believe in fake news or disinformation pretty easily.  

Earlier, another study from ActionAid published in 2022 stated that 64 out of every 100 women are falling victims to harassment and violence online some way or another.

The research mentioned that 1,400 of the 25,000 contents were rooted in more gender-based offences. As much as 70 per cent of these posts are indeed sexual. For example, the term ‘sex worker’ has been used in these contents. About 19 per cent of the attacks were on the individual’s religious and sexual beliefs or on the ethnic minority.

Meanwhile, 10 per cent of them were attacks on their behaviors using terms such as, ‘drinking alcohol’, ‘partying late at night’ etc. Analysing the posts it has been found that 300 identical posts have been published from different pages and groups to spread fake information and disinformation organisedly.

The rate of attack against women was way higher than that against men. The tendency of attack towards women was the highest from February to August of 2023.

While it had declined between September and November the propensity of attack revamp back in December before the election. And then it plunged again in January.

The study stated that 51 individuals, politicians, journalists, analysts and rights activists have been the victim of gender-sensitive assaults total 1,887 times. Compared to Awami League, BNP leaders and their family members have been victimised by more attacks.

As many as 200 posts about Tarique Rahman were analised, which amount to 15 per cent of the total content review. Though the two granddaughters of Khaleda Zia are not engaged in active politics, more than 150 posts have been noticed against them.

They have been attacked alongside Tarique Rahman and Khaleda Zia in 413 posts and that makes up for 28 per cent of the total assessed posts. Meanwhile, Shama Oabaid and Rumeen Farhana have fallen victim to 345 posts.

Four times prime minister Sheikh Hasina has also been the victim of 45 gender-based attacks. However, she has been presented positively in 223 incidents. Apart from them, journalists and social media analysts have also faced 323 incidents of attacks.

On the topic of BNP leaders becoming the victim of these attacks more, Shushashoner Jonno Nagorik (Sujan) secretary Badiul Alam Majumdar told Prothom Alo, "In this era of artificial intelligence (AI) truths and lies are being deliberately interchanged. This terrible trend is being noticed everywhere in the world after all."

"Awami League creates a separate workforce to increase monitoring on social media before the national elections. Since they were in power, they were more organised. On the other hand BNP was in a state of chaos (with cases and arrests). They couldn’t become organised that much and fell victim to these attacks more."

Badiul Alam added that there’s a weakness in the law enforcement as well. Noticeably, the people in power get more opportunities of exercising law against the opposition. And under the social context, women in this country very easily turn into targets of violence.

Over 700 pages have falsely shared various posts mentioning them to be news published in media. Of them, 137 pages have claimed to be linked with political parties. However, the political parties have not said anything clearly about this.

It has been noticed that some groups and pages have shared certain contents within seconds of them being posted. To establish the fake accusations they had then uploaded those again. The fact checkers have found that majority of these contents shared from various pages and groups have gone in favour of the ruling party.

Researchers at the Tech Global Institute have stated that despite there being a Facebook policy about violence against women, this sort of contents don’t get removed quickly enough.

One of the major reasons behind this is that the Facebook policy defines common public and well-known individuals differently. Politicians and public representatives are considered public figures. Facebook believes critiquing this type of people is a part of freedom of speech. In this case, men and women are considered equal.

Fowzia Afroz said that in the case of some vulgar words, symbols like star, hash or slash have been inserted after every single letter. The Facebook algorithm is unable to detect words written like this as instance of violence. She said that the incidents of violence committed on social media should be handled with more emphasis.

Instead of making new laws, it should be analysed how women-friendly are the existing ones. There’s something about preventing violence against women in every law but the implementation of that is feeble. Plus, public awareness has to be increased about the use of social media, she added.

*This report appeared in the print and online versions of Prothom Alo and has been rewritten in English by Nourin Ahmed Monisha.