Social network of hate: Content inciting violence, spreading lies cause irreparable damage

"The challenge lies in debunking a rumour before it gets shared -- and that it can get out of control within a very short period of time."

— PROF DIN MD SUMON RAHMAN, THE EDITOR OF FACTWATCH

If you search for "mondire Quran" (the Holy Quran at a temple) or "Quran obomanona" (demeaning the Holy Quran) on YouTube, you will find over 300 videos spewing hate speech against a minority community.

That was the tally as of yesterday, eight days after the mayhem at a puja mandap in Cumilla on October 13 when the Hindu community all across the country was celebrating Durga Puja.

Upload dates and times show that a significant portion of these videos were made and uploaded within hours of the attack on October 13. All of them can be classified as featuring hate speech.

The videos were uploaded by channels that specifically cater to a section of audience interested in religious content. The content ranges from innocuous religious explainers to obscene and inciteful.

The inciteful videos spread with frightening speed on Facebook with a group of people sharing those without verifying the content, sparking angry backlash from people who took what they saw at face value.

A Facebook search reveals that people have used the social network to rally support and spread hate speech, misinformation and provocative videos that were being posted at an increasingly faster pace and the impacts of which continue to grow long afterwards.

A YouTube channel called "Mojumder Islamic Media", run by one Shoriful Islam from Cumilla, was the first to upload a video with the title "Bangladesh rages after finding Quran beneath idol".

The thumbnail was cleverly edited with photos of protesting men in religious garb.

"I got the video and I thought people should know what happened, so I shared it," Shoriful told The Daily Star yesterday.

One of the most watched video titled "Quran demeaned at Cumilla Puja Mondop, Quran rescued Nauzubillah", has over 1.2 lakh views, and was uploaded at 5:00pm on the day of the attack by a channel named Pirojpur Islamic Media alias Torun Waz.

The channel is run by the aide of one M Zakaria Hossain, a preacher (khatib) of Baitun Nazat Masjid in Khulna. Since the incident, the channel has produced six videos on the topic. Zakaria confirmed that his aide, in fact, runs the channel to promote his preaching.

In the comments of the videos, the channel encouraged viewers to be prepared for Islamic warfare.

A channel called Rose Tv News -- which has no contact information of its operators -- uploaded 27 videos on this topic within 72 hours of the Cumilla incident. Some of the videos have a lakh views. All of the videos describe at length how religious sentiments and values are under attack.

Another popular YouTube channel regularly churning out videos on this topic is News BD. They produced 18 videos specifically on this topic in the four days following the Cumilla incident. The channel released as many as 10 such videos within the first day.

The channel is run by one Md Komor Uddin, from Konabari, Gazipur. When contacted, Komor said he is a student of a qawmi madrasa in the area. "I made this video because I want the truth to be exposed. I don't have any original content. I usually make videos based on news," he said.

The titles of the videos included phrasing like "Cumilla under siege, many martyred" and "BGB deployed in Cumilla. Strict measures taken to obstruct the Alem community".

Among other videos of his, one -- which has garnered 75,000 views -- was reported by the government and subsequently blocked in Bangladesh by YouTube, according to a notice on the link stating, "This content is not available in this country domain due to a legal complaint from the government".

However, the video can still be accessed via a VPN.

The power of such multimedia content can be perceived from the comments below these videos.

Many commenters, hiding behind cyber profiles, call for outright violence that threaten communal harmony. The Daily Star is refraining from quoting the violent suggestions verbatim.

Prof Din Md Sumon Rahman, the editor of Factwatch -- a fact-checking outlet run by University of Liberal Arts Bangladesh's mass communication and journalism department -- said the challenge lies in debunking a rumour before it gets shared and that it can get out of control within a very short period of time.

Factwatch operates as a third-party fact-checker for Facebook.

Historically speaking, the content of the original post or the identity of the original poster has rarely mattered. The fallout of the post, the inciteful content that mushrooms afterwards has often caused the most damage.

Police in Sunamganj's Shalla upazila had to pre-emptively arrest Jhumon Das for posting a status against Hefajat-e-Islam leader Mamunul Haque, so as to prevent any violence from happening.

It did not work -- within a day, as news of Jhumon's "hurting religious sentiment" spread all over social media, the village of Noagaon was attacked by extremists. As many as 90 households of the Hindu community were vandalised, Jhumon's own house being one of them.

Jhumon was then charged under the Digital Security Act for the violence -- even though he was in police custody at the time of the attack. He subsequently spent five months in prison.

During the 2016 violence of Nasirnagar in Brahmanbaria, a similar thing happened. It took the investigators several months to even identify the original poster of the image that went viral on social media in various formats. Meanwhile, a scapegoat was found, who spent months in jail.

The original poster was Jahangir Alam, owner of Al-Amin Cyber Point and Studio, who shared an anti-Islamic post alleging a local Hindu fisherman named Rasraj Das had posted it on Facebook. Rasraj Das was thrown in jail.

Jahangir confessed his involvement to the police, saying during interrogation that he had done it as per instruction of Haripur Union Parishad Chairman Dewan Atiqur Rahman Akhi.

As social media produces hate, the original incident which happened in Cumilla is starting to take a back seat, and communal fault-lines are beginning to appear.

Professor Rahman, editor of Factwatch, said, "We published five-seven articles debunking rumours just in the first 24 hours [after the Cumilla incident]. During the first phase, people were mostly sharing news of the Holy Quran being demeaned, but slowly the rumours crept in."

He said since the day after the Cumilla incident, people have been sharing content speculating about the main culprit, and inflating casualty numbers on Facebook.

"The video of one person not involved with the Cumilla incident at all was shared widely, citing him to be the culprit. The situation became dangerous to the point where people close to him started posting saying they fear for his life."