What to do if you fall victim to fake news

In August 2016, Shamim Nasreen, a Dhaka-based journalist, got a shocking information from her colleagues. A news article was published on the online news portals of Bangladesh, whose title in Bangla meant 'mother and daughter share the same husband'. Four news portals shared that news with the photo of Nasreen's family.

This was something Nasreen was not ready for and it was an embarrassing incident for her family members. 

She immediately ran to the police station and informed them about this. 

The police contacted Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (BTRC) and tagged Nasreen to Md. Zakir Hossain Khan, who is currently the Deputy Director of the organisation. 

According to his instructions, Nasreen took screenshots of the news from those portals and submitted them with a formal application. Within four days, the news was taken down from the websites. 

"I have written about other people's lives, but never thought I would be a news myself like this. It was extremely stressful and embarrassing for me and I was scared that my family would get to know about this. I didn't want that to happen", Nasreen said. 

In this era of online social media platforms and deepfakes, we can be threatened by fake news, photos, videos, misinformation and rumours. In September 2012, violence was unleashed on the Buddhist community in Ramu by spreading a rumour that a Facebook post derogatory to the Holy Quran was made on the Facebook page of a local Buddhist youth, Uttam Barua.

That case is still not solved even after a decade. Not just that, on October 15, 2021, an angry mob attacked a Hindu temple in Cumilla after a photo showing the Quran placed on the knee of a Hindu deity went viral on social media during the Hindu festival of Durga Puja.

That is how fake news and posts affect not just individuals, but whole communities.

According to the information provided by BTRC, every month the organisation works to stop an average of 3,020 items that are harmful for the public security, pornographic, encourage online betting, instigate violence over religion or political ideologies, or spread rumours and misinformation, etc. Although they have no exact number or statistics on how many fake news are being published online every day or month.

In 2020, Sensity published a report titled 'The State of Deepfakes 2020' which said that over 85 thousand harmful deepfake videos, crafted by expert creators, were detected up to December 2020. The number of expert-crafted videos has been doubling every six months since observations started in December 2018. Sensity is an AI tool that detects deepfakes.

A deepfake is a media file—image, video, or speech, typically representing a human subject—that has been altered deceptively using deep neural networks (DNNs) to alter a person's identity. Any photo or video that we upload online can be taken to make such deepfakes. 

As of June 2022, more than 500 hours of video were uploaded to YouTube every minute. This equates to approximately 30,000 hours of newly uploaded content per hour. Which means whatever we put online, on our social media accounts, if not protected well, can be used against us.

In one of the previous interviews taken by TBS, Suborno Rekha Dolon, a fact-checker at FactWatch, an independent fact-checking entity, said "misinformation spreads rapidly online, leading to various consequences, including public confusion, polarisation, and even real-world harm. Fact-checkers play a crucial role in combating this problem by verifying claims, debunking falsehoods, and providing accurate information to the public."

A punishable offence

Sunanda Roy, the Assistant Inspector General of Bangladesh Police said, "The cyber crimes have increased over the years. These cases are handled by the special cyber teams of the police and we send these over to CID as well."

Recently, Agence France-Presse (AFP) analysed more than 700 articles published in at least 60 domestic and international news sites with bylines attributed to 35 names – and all of them appeared online in 2022. In their investigation, AFP found these 35 writers used fake identity and photos to spread misinformation. 

We talked to advocate Nazrul Islam Shamim, special public prosecutor of the Cyber Tribunal, who said, "Under the section 24 of Digital Security Act, it was clearly stated that if any person, intentionally or knowingly, by using any digital device holds the identity of another person in order to  get benefit for himself or for any other person, such act of the person shall be an offence. 

Also in section 25 it was stated that if any person intentionally or knowingly transmits, publishes or propagates any information which he knows to be offensive, false or threatening, it will be an offence.

Such crimes were also punishable under sections 28, 29 and 31 of the Act.  

The majority of the DSA cases were about sexual harassment that includes young women and girls. Also there are cases regarding the Bkash frauds.

DSA has recently been replaced by Cyber Security Act 2023 (CSA). All the existing DSA cases will now automatically go under the new law.

The cybercrime cases need almost a year to complete. But the time depends on the police investigation and there are currently 400 such cases pending at cybercrime tribunals.

So what do we do when we are a victim of fake news and how do we keep our safety?

"Whenever a person feels that mis/disinformation is being spread about that person, s/he should immediately contact the law enforcement agencies", replied Md. Zakir Hossain Khan, the BTRC official, when we asked him the question. 

BTRC checks the rumours and fake news and removes them from online. They also cooperate with the law enforcement agencies by providing them with the necessary information regarding any particular case. They help in court proceedings by providing information. 

"When we receive any request from the law enforcement agency to remove offensive contents from online or social media platforms, we contact the platforms directly to remove it. But if it is any news website that is spreading fake news or rumours, it's the police that orders them to take it down", he said.

The Bangladesh Fact Check Editor for AFP, Qadaruddin Shishir, who is also a co-founder of BD FactCheck and the author of the first Bangla fact-checking handbook, added that the victim can also inform the fact checking groups to debunk the misinformation for them. There are a number of fact checking organisations in Bangladesh such as BOOM Bangladesh, Dismislab, Rumor Scanner, and Fact-Watch.

"We cannot debunk every misinformation or fake news that is out there, because there are many. So the fact checkers choose the major ones that go viral, mostly those that can be harmful for a person or community and the ones that are crucial for our national interest", he said.   

According to him the fact checkers of Bangladesh debunk an average of a hundred misinformation, fake news or rumours every month. 

According to Shishir, there are many tools to verify information, videos or photos online; for example, google reverse image search, InVid and WeVerify chrome extensions, CrowdTangle link checker for facebook etc. Also the knacks for investigative journalism on online platforms really can help to get the information out. Which one should be used depends on the case itself.  

If any person feels his/her privacy is breached with an AI photo or video that has been published on social media platforms, s/he can inform the fact checkers, who will inform the platforms. The platforms will then remove the content. Also these platforms have their own reporting systems, which allows them to remove harassing contents, although this takes a bit of time. 

Shishir also added, "The news media houses should increase their verification capacity and also publish more and more stories on this issue. Also, media houses can create awareness campaigns to increase media literacy, strengthening privacy of people." 

Prevention

Multi-factor authentication is an electronic authentication method in which a user is granted access to a website or application only after successfully presenting two or more pieces of evidence to an authentication mechanism.

As Zakir Hossain said that if a person wants to protect his/her social media accounts, s/he needs to activate the two-step verification option on his browser and the social media accounts, put strong passwords on the devices s/he uses, update the softwares regularly and refrain from clicking unknown suspicious links on social media platforms and email. 

"You should be careful what you share on your accounts, what you post, whether it is in written or audio-visual format. Also the social media platforms like YouTube, Facebook, tiktok etc have security suggestions for the users, one must read carefully and follow those. 

Apart from two-step verification on your browser, setting a strong password or locking your social media platforms, there are more advanced options to protect your online accounts from being taken over by bad guys. 

A hardware security key is one of the best defences that can offer an additional layer of security to password-protected online accounts and a person's identity. These are easy to install and you can set them up for your accounts. 

There are a range of hardware security keys available in the tech market which start from $25 to $85. Yubico's 'FIDO U2F', Google's U2F key 'Titan', Kensington's 'Thetis USB-A key' are some of the popular hardware keys. 

Also phone apps like Certo can be a great option for detecting whether your phone is hacked or not, if your device contains spyware or bugging software, malicious keyboards installed on your device that could allow someone to record things you type e.g. passwords, or any known tracking app is installed. This app helps to scan, detect and remove threats from iPhone and Android devices.