New Information Minister Hasan Mahmud has vowed to address the issue of fake news sites on his very first day at office.
“My friends in the media raised the issue yesterday after the oath-taking ceremony. Several online news outlets have sprung up and many of them publish fake news. There have been instances of character assassination as well” he said while speaking to reporters at his office on Tuesday (Jan 8).
Just 10 days ahead of the national election held on Dec 30, Facebook and Twitter removed up to 30 accounts for spreading fake news in Bangladesh.
Social media giant Facebook said it removed nine pages and shut six accounts for "coordinated inauthentic behaviour" on the social media platform in Bangladesh.
The pages were all designed to look like authentic news pages, including one operated by the BBC’s Bangla-language service and another by online newspaper bdnews24.com.
In November, clones of several popular news websites in Bangladesh appeared, disseminating outright false political news.
Bangla Tribune, Prothom Alo, and BBC Bangla were all duplicated.
“I’ll deal with the issue with your (media and journalists) help,” Minister Hasan Mahmud said on Tuesday.
The media is the fourth estate and acts as the mirror of society, he said before adding, “I’ve been involved with the media for a long time … Journalists have many problems. I know about some and will try to learn about others.”