A monthly newsletter on disinformation trends in Bangladesh
First harassed by a deepfake then by porn links dominating search results
Imagine Googling your name and seeing explicit “18+” links appear at the top — that’s what happened to Archita Phukan, a deepfake victim from Assam, India. A Dismislab investigation found that 54% of her search results were pornographic clickbait, hosted on domains like Cornell.edu and ny.gov. This is how a victim of online harassment gets re-victimized by search engine algorithm manipulation.
Gambling ads persist on Meta, now boosted by AI videos
In 2024, research by Dismislab revealed that thousands of betting advertisements ran on various Meta platforms targeting Bangladeshi users, violating both Bangladeshi law and Meta’s policies. A year later, it’s business as usual. Recent investigations by Dismislab show a significant number of gambling advertisements are still displayed daily in Meta's ad library. What’s new in this illegal promotion is the use of AI-generated videos.
HKS Misinformation Review
The Conversation
Institute for Strategic Dialogue
