Bangladesh, Italy to jointly combat disinformation campaign over migration

Bangladesh and Italy will work together to fight a 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 on Sunday afternoon.

“Human traffickers carry out disinformation campaigns on social media to lure people over migration to European countries through illegal channels. As a result, they are exposed to danger and even fall into life risk,” Arafat told reporters, emerging from the meeting.

Not only immigration seekers but also people in different other sectors fall victim to that disinformation campaign, he said, adding: “Therefore, we talked about how we can effectively address the problem together.”

Noting that Italy will share their laws and regulations regarding 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 coordination among the government, local stockholders and foreign missions in Bangladesh regarding 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.

But this year, they also followed the same process in making the report, Arafat said, questioning the credibility of their sources from which they take information, saying: “Are those sources giving objective information with honesty or do they have any agenda?” 

Mentioning that the report will lose its credibility if there is any methodological weakness and information is incorporated without verification, he said, “I welcome the RSF’s ranking initiative. But I would urge them to remove the methodological weaknesses and verify the information before making the report”.

Earlier, talking to reporters, the Italian ambassador said that they discussed about how they can counter disinformation and fake news together, particularly concerning the illegal migration issues.

He emphasized on making correct information available and creating awareness among the people about legal migration to stop illegal migration.

Antonio Alessandro said a safer and legal path to migrate into Europe should be promoted.

“We also discussed the people-to-people relation,” he said, adding that they also discussed how Bangladesh can present its cultural heritage in Italy through cinema and participate in important art exhibitions in Venice and Milan.

Source: BSS