Bangladesh's virtual political battles find new stage on rarely used Twitter

Against the backdrop of a massive power outage in the first week of June, Bangladesh saw a rather humorous virtual fight between the ruling Bangladesh Awami League and main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP). 

It was a meme war on Facebook, with each side attacking the other about their respective records in electrification and power cuts. 

On 5 June, BNP posted a meme on their Facebook page, captioned, "Hasina government's development is lighting candles after sundown [due to loadshedding]." On the same day, Awami League posted a meme captioning, "BNP is reminiscing [or nostalgic about] the pillar days [in reference to 'pillars without electric lines' controversy during the last BNP tenure]." 

Both memes, and many others like them, received incredible attention on Facebook that week. People were amused by the meme war. 

However, with time, as the political landscape heated up, BNP began staging one rally after another in Dhaka and elsewhere in the country, demanding a caretaker government and Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina's resignation. Awami League also observed counter-rallies expressing support for the premier. 

Now, Twitter, a platform rarely used by Bangladeshis, has suddenly witnessed an outpouring of participation of Bangladeshis expressing support for the cause of the opposition movement or promoting the government's narratives. 

Among 66.94 million active internet users in Bangladesh, there are 59.2 million Facebook users, 6.5 million Instagram users, and 7 million LinkedIn users. In comparison, there were only 1.05 million Twitter users in Bangladesh as of early 2023. 

However, in recent weeks, especially ever since BNP announced their demand for the prime minister's resignation and forming an election-time caretaker government, there has been a massive surge of opposition supporters on Twitter.

The ruling party is also trying to encourage its supporters to become active on Twitter. 

It is hard to say how many have exactly joined the platform, or how many inactive accounts have possibly been reactivated during this timeframe, but people active on social media have seen a significant uptick. 

And most of these newly active Bangladeshi users on Twitter seem to have a political motivation. As a result, how much of the crowd will actually stick to the platform, in the long run, is also hard to say. 

So why this sudden appeal for Twitter among the politically conscious in Bangladesh? 

We interviewed Awami League and BNP leaders to understand their drive to draw respective support bases towards Twitter. 

Both sides believe that the presence of policymakers, think tanks, experts, diplomats, politicians as well as media segments from all over the world is high on Twitter. 

While Facebook serves the local people — the main audience of the political parties — Twitter is increasingly turning out to be a strategic platform to engage foreign support bases, including human rights defenders, foreign media personalities, diplomats, and so on. 

"Since Twitter is an important social media platform for significant policymakers, we have tried to extend our activities on Twitter," Zahir Uddin Swapon, convenor of BNP Media Cell told The Business Standard. 

He admitted that Twitter is not very popular in Bangladesh in consideration of the common people's participation. But Twitter is used by a "quality audience", Swapon explained, adding this is why they have "chosen Twitter" to attract the psyche of these "influential people". 

Shah Ali Farhad, a senior associate of the Centre for Research and Information (CRI) and a member of the Awami League's sub-committee on international affairs, said the BNP is more active on Twitter at the moment because they want to "draw the attention of the foreigners". 

"I believe that BNP is ahead of Awami League in terms of using the Twitter platform for launching political campaigns. BNP's number of posts as well as writers are more than what Awami League has," Farhad said. "They keep posting on Twitter on a regular basis." 

While the official Twitter of Awami League works well as they post on a regular basis too (it responds to the rumours and highlights the development work the Awami League has done), he said. "Awami League launches campaigns more on Facebook and YouTube." 

Here is an example of how the Awami League vs BNP social media war is playing out on Twitter: At some point in the last few days, #StepDownHasina was trending on Twitter with 15,000 tweets. The counter attempt by ruling party supporters, #OnceAgainHasina, was not trending on Twitter, although it had good traction on Facebook. 

Swapon said BNP and their allies utilise the platform to promote their "massive support base" that they have flaunted in the last few rallies in Dhaka. Besides, they heavily "campaign against human rights violation" in Bangladesh. 

"We promote on Twitter how people are fighting a regular movement to get their voting rights back, rights that the government is trying to thwart using the administration in a partisan manner. We raise the issues of human rights violation with proof so that the international community and platforms like Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International are not misguided by the government's propaganda," he further said.  

Awami League's Farhad said his party, on the other hand, is more focused on the people of the country unlike BNP leaders who are "chasing after the diplomatic zones". 

When asked how their Twitter presence is benefiting their cause, BNP's Swapon said there have been impacts already. 

"We have already seen the steps taken by the US, the sanctions, congressmen's concerns, the statements by HRW and Amnesty, the reactions by European Commission members, etc," he said. 

Farhad said that the foreigners are taking information from Twitter. 

"As the presence of BNP is high on Twitter, foreigners are taking those opinions. For example, in BNP's programme during the last few days, much discussion has been over the police's action in the programme on Twitter," Farhad said. "There were arson attacks and vandalism in the name of the programme on behalf of BNP, but it did not come up on Twitter discussions," Farhad further said. 

Farhad said although his partymen lag behind on Twitter usage at the moment, he noticed that many members of Chhatra League [student wing of Awami League] are opening accounts on Twitter. 

"I think Awami League has come up short in terms of Twitter presence. But recent activities have helped us understand the importance of Twitter presence. I think we will overcome this in a month or two," he added.

Bangladesh Chhatra League leaders have reportedly instructed all activists to increase online activities, and made it mandatory for each unit to have its own Facebook page, Twitter account and YouTube channel.