On April 5, a claim circulated on social media alleging a severe terrorist attack at the Dhaka Cantonment, resulting in the deaths of nine army personnel and two militants. This information was sourced from a link to a ‘news’ site, which, upon investigation by Rumor Scanner, was found to be false. The site utilized a free Blogspot domain and lacked any credible evidence to support its claims. This incident underscores a concerning trend where free Blogspot domains are employed to disseminate political misinformation in Bangladesh.
Since August 2024, Rumor Scanner’s Investigation Unit has been monitoring such activities and has identified at least 16 Blogspot-based sites regularly spreading false information about Bangladesh. Their investigations have revealed the individuals behind these sites, those propagating the misinformation on social media, and the targets of these deceptive narratives.
This pattern highlights the need for increased vigilance and verification when encountering news from unverified sources, especially those utilizing free hosting platforms to spread potentially harmful misinformation.
How are free domains on Blogspot created?
Blogspot is a free blogging platform owned by Google, the search engine giant. On this platform (http://www.blogger.com), anyone can create a blog site for free and regularly publish posts. The process is quite simple. A person just needs an email account to create a blog with their preferred name. Since it’s free, the word “blogspot” appears in the website URL. For example, if someone wants to name their blog “Bangladesh,” the URL would look like: https://bangladesh.blogspot.com
This is an SEO (Search Engine Optimization) friendly platform, which means blogs from this site often get many visitors from Google searches. As a result, any content published here can quickly reach a large audience. Also, on Facebook, people usually look for supportive links to believe or verify a claim. Taking advantage of this, some users publish false or misleading posts on these blogs and then share the blog link in their Facebook posts to make the false information seem more credible. Since at least September last year, several such Blogspot sites have been created and used to spread misinformation about Bangladesh using this method.
Disinformation on Multiple Blogspot Sites
In August 2024, when a mass uprising happened in Bangladesh and the government led by Sheikh Hasina was removed, a new method of spreading disinformation caught the attention of the Rumor Scanner Investigation Unit. The first sign came from a site called “Sadhin Bangladesh News 247” on September 5. That month, this site published at least 65 fake news articles and shared them on Facebook. The same type of activity continued in the following months. Rumor Scanner later found at least 15 more similar sites doing the same thing.
Out of these sites, at least five used the names and logos of well-known local and international media to make their content look real. The Rumor Scanner Investigation Unit has also found evidence that it was successful. Examples include: “Daily News BD Aowami League” using the logo of Daily Kaler Kantho, “Amar Deesh” using the logo and name of Daily Amar Desh, “Borer Dak” using a changed logo of Daily Bhorer Dak, “BBC News Bangla 2470” using the name and logo of BBC Bangla, and “Anandabazar Patrika” using the name of the Indian newspaper Anandabazar. Not all of these websites are currently active. The first site, “Sadhin Bangladesh News 247”, stopped publishing in February and removed its old content. However, a similar site named “Sadhin News 247” started spreading fake news instead and is still active. Some other sites that are now inactive include: Daily News BD Aowami League, BBC News Bangla 2470, BangladesherO, Lima Akter 2022, Bangladesh 4348, Bangladesh 3447, and Lima Akter 344. The last five cannot even be accessed anymore.
Analysis of the misinformation from these sites shows that the creators of the fake news closely follow events that are trending in the media and on social media. They then publish false information about people or organizations related to those events around the same time.
For example, on March 7, Bangladeshi online activist Pinaki Bhattacharya, who lives in France, posted on his Facebook page that he would undergo surgery in a hospital. The next day, a blogspot site named “Amar Deesh” falsely claimed that Pinaki had died during the surgery. But in reality, the surgery was successful, and Pinaki recovered. After publishing such fake news, some specific Facebook accounts share the links in groups that follow the same ideology to spread the misinformation.
A Group Working Behind the Scenes
For the past few months, the Rumor Scanner Investigation Unit has been trying to find out who is running these free Blogspot domain sites. We were also keeping an eye on who is regularly sharing the so-called news from these sites on Facebook. After long observation, RS I-Unit found that several Facebook accounts, pages, and groups—run under fake identities—are regularly spreading only this kind of false information.
While analyzing the identity and activities of the accounts spreading misinformation, the Rumor Scanner Investigation Unit found at least two organized groups. These groups are working together to spread false information from the sites on social media. One of the main accounts suspected to be leading one of these groups is named Tapasshe Tabassum Urmi. This account uses the name and identity of a person who was temporarily suspended from her job as an Executive Magistrate in Lalmonirhat on October 7 last year. She was suspended for making negative comments about Abu Sayeed and others who died during the quota reform movement. However, the account was created six months before that event, on April 1, 2023. At first, the name of the account was ‘Rim Jhim’. Before the August uprising, the account was used to spread sensitive images of women in different Facebook groups. One group used for this purpose is also managed by this account. This account has more than 7,000 followers and started sharing fake news from Blogspot sites in September 2023. After the real-life incident involving Tapasshe Tabassum Urmi became widely known in October, the account changed its name and profile picture to match her identity. Rumor Scanner Investigation Unit found that this account’s posts were often commented on by the official Facebook page of the ‘Bangladesh Awami Swechasebak League’.
The account uses a page and a group to spread false information. A page called “Swadhin News 247” was originally created under the name “Sajeeb Wazed Joy” (son of former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina) on November 7 last year. In February this year, the name was changed to the current one. This page and the account named “Tapasshe Tabassum Urmi” are admins of a group called “Swadhin Bangladesh.” The group is quite old. It was originally created as “Bangladesh Awami League” on September 7, 2020. In 2023, the group started promoting gambling under the name “Betx365 official Agent group.” After the mass uprising in August 2024, its name was changed again on September 14 to “News of Swadhin Bangladesh 24/7.” The name was briefly changed back to “Bangladesh Awami League” on November 15, but on February 19 this year, the current name was set again. Another admin of the group is a Facebook account named “Akash Islam.” This account was originally opened as “Nibir Chowdhury” on March 29, 2024. Later, the name was changed. In the beginning, the person behind the account used the name “Mohammad Ali” and promoted gambling using a phone number. In September of last year, the account started spreading false information.
There is another account named “Apriyo Shotto” involved in this group. This account was created on October 13, 2021. After the August uprising, posts with false information often show reactions from both the “Urmi” and “Akash Islam” accounts. This group also operates two Facebook pages called “Sotter Sandhane” and “Amar Desh”, both created in October last year, on the 7th and 10th respectively.
Two Facebook pages were initially created under the name “Tapasshe Tabassum Urmi” but were later renamed. Accounts like “Awami League Poribar News,” “Md Rocky Ahmed,” and “Jahid Hasan Noyan” have been identified as part of the same network spreading disinformation. Analyses by the Rumor Scanner Investigation Unit reveal that these accounts, groups, and pages are interconnected, with the “Tapasshe Tabassum Urmi” account serving as a central link. These entities have been disseminating false information from sites such as borer-dak, Sadhinbangladeshnews247, bbcnews2470, sadhinnews247, amardeesh247, and fullmoviedownload76246.
The disinformation is regularly shared in at least a dozen unofficial Facebook groups associated with the Awami League and its leaders, including groups named Bangladesh Awami League, Bangladesh Awami League Bangladesh Awami League, Bangladesh Awami League (Chatra League Jubo League), Bangladesh Chhatra League, Bangladesh Chhatra League Dhaka Metropolitan North, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, Honorable Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, Sheikh Fazlul Karim Selim, Saima Wazed Putul, Tulip Siddiq -MP Fans, Protest Mujib Sena Oikya Parishad an online based political organization, British Awami League Support Team.
The Rumor Scanner Investigation Unit refers to this network as “Group 1” for investigative purposes.
Outside of group 1, the Rumor Scanner Investigation Unit has found at least four Facebook accounts under the names Tania, Rahi, Shakib Hossain, Somi Akhter. We also found at least six Facebook pages named MD, Joumouna Tv, Johana Tv, News27, Somoy, Dainik Bangla News. These accounts and pages have been working together to regularly share false information published on at least five inactive websites (bangladesar0, limaaktar2022, bangladesh4348, bangladesh3447, limaakhter344) and three active ones (banglanewsachehd, mdrasidhe44, bhdhdjjddh). The “About” sections of these accounts don’t contain much personal information. These pages were created between October last year and this April. Most of them have zero to two followers. These accounts also post fake information in different Facebook groups like “Bangladesh Pratidin,” “Amar Desh,” and “Facebook Monetization Support.” For research purposes, the Rumor Scanner Investigation Unit refers to this group as Group 2.
What type of disinformation is being spread?
By analyzing the disinformation on the websites promoted by the two groups, the Rumor Scanner Investigation Unit finds that on Group 1’s sites, disinformation about the interim government and the government’s chief advisor, Dr. Muhammad Yunus, is being spread. All of this disinformation is against the government and Dr. Yunus. 90% of the disinformation is related to the resignation of the government and Dr. Yunus. On the other hand, the disinformation about the former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, who was removed from power, is all in her favor. Most of the disinformation is about her return to the country. Furthermore, after August, there has been a trend of spreading disinformation that supports the Awami League. The disinformation also involves the armed forces. Among them, most of the false information is related to the Bangladesh Army and its chief, General Waker-uz-Zaman.
In the case of Group 2, there has been no one-sided trend in spreading disinformation. On the sites controlled by this group, there has been disinformation spreading both in favor of and against the Awami League. A common thing about these sites is that the same “news” is repeatedly published on the same site and other sites in the group after some time. Using this method, false news about the arrest of Sheikh Hasina’s daughter, Saima Wazed Putul, has been spread at least six times. These sites have spread the most disinformation about the Bangladesh Army, all of which portray the army negatively. These sites do not last long. Most of them are now inactive. Some sites, after being accessed, immediately redirect users to a different site within a few seconds.
There are policies, but questions about effectiveness
The Blogger platform follows a liberal policy when it comes to sites created with Blogspot. According to them, the freedom of expression is the foundation of their service, and censoring content would go against that principle. However, in upholding these values, they have stated that they will prevent any offensive behavior that could threaten their ability to provide services and freedom of expression. Blogger relies on its users to report any content that violates the community guidelines. In this case, any reader is encouraged to report violations.
Blogger’s policy advises users not to impersonate any person or organization or present themselves incorrectly. It also suggests avoiding content that could confuse readers or viewers about the true identity of the people involved. However, the sites in question regularly spread false information by using fake identities, such as other media names and logos.
Blogger’s policy warns users to be careful about spreading fake information, such as claiming that a political person or government official has died, had an accident, or is suddenly seriously ill. Despite this, Blogger’s free sites have been used for months in Bangladesh to spread similar claims about politicians. Blogger says that if a blog is found to have violated their community guidelines, they can take actions depending on the seriousness of the violation. These actions may include warning about sensitive content before a post is viewed, removing the post so only the author can see it, deleting offensive content, removing the blog or post, disabling the author’s Blogger or Google account, or reporting the user to the appropriate legal authorities. On the other hand, fake accounts and pages have been created to spread this false information on Facebook. Meta has issued strong warnings about fake accounts. They say their goal is to remove as many fake accounts as possible from Facebook. This includes quickly deleting accounts created for harmful purposes that violate their policies. Despite Meta’s strict policies, fake accounts using other people’s names and identities continue to operate, and the spread of false information is growing year after year.
