ICT minister launches campaign to differentiate the truth from online lies and rumours

The government has launched a campaign called "Know The Truth" (Ashol Chini) to make people aware of the spread of rumours and false information through online and social media.

The Digital Security Agency (DSA) of the Information and Communication Technology Division and the LICT project of the Bangladesh Computer Council (BCC) will jointly raise awareness of about 7 million people in the country in a three-month campaign.

Inaugurating the campaign at the BCC office in a zoom meeting today, State Minister for Information and Communication Technology Zunaid Ahmed Palak said, "It is hard to differentiate real information due to the spread of rumours and false information online through social media."

"Due to this, social peace and resources in the country have been destroyed. There have even been fatalities. But with a little bit of conscience, we can easily know which is true, which is false and which is a rumour," added ICT Minister.

The "Know The Truth" campaign of the ICT department will be starting from today to stop the spread of such rumours and propaganda, he added. 

DSA Director General and LICT Project Director Md Rezaul Karim presided over the inaugural function.

N M Ziaul Alam, secretary, ICT Division, Parthapratim Deb, executive director, BCC, Sami Ahmed, policy advisor, LICT Project, among others spoke on the occasion.

The Minister presented a PowerPoint titled 'Building a Digital Literate Nation'. He said that although the literacy rate in the country has increased to 74.8 percent, there was a lack of digital literacy. 

False information and rumours cannot be prevented without digital literacy. The Minister called upon the 4.5 crore social media users, 90 per cent of whom are young, to come forward to prevent the spread of false information and rumours.

'Durbar' (www.durbar21.org) has been created for the campaign, and through registration, two ambassadors will be appointed in wards, districts, upazilas and unions under city corporations and municipalities across the country to create awareness.

The state minister gave two laptops to Tuba and Mahir, two daughters of Taslima Begum Renu, who was killed in 2019 due to rumours.