As Bangladesh prepares for its General Elections on February 12, 2026, a new report from The Daily Star reveals a sophisticated and aggressive disinformation campaign flooding social media. Monitoring data from mid-December 2025 to mid-January 2026 shows that 220 documented cases of fake news generated over 2 million interactions on Facebook within just 24 hours of being posted.
The findings highlight a digital “battleground” where political actors are leveraging AI-generated visuals, doctored images, and fabricated quotes to manipulate swing voters and fuel partisan hostility.
Key Findings from the Disinformation Report
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Top Offenders: Entities aligned with Jamaat-i-Islami accounted for nearly half of the disinformation cases (96 posts) and dominated engagement with 90.68% (1.8 million) of total interactions.
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Strategic Targeting: Disinformation is rarely random. Jamaat-aligned groups directed 78% of their false content at the BNP, while BNP-aligned actors targeted Jamaat in 80% of their campaigns.
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The Interim Government: Pro-Awami League entities shifted focus toward undermining the interim government and student coordinators, including circulating false claims of civil war plots.
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Defamation as a Weapon: Out of the 220 analyzed posts, 155 were categorized as defamatory, with political rivals accusing one another of criminality, extortion, and moral corruption.
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The Rise of AI & Photocards: While video remains the primary medium (104 cases), AI-generated deepfakes (58 cases) and misleading photocards (44 cases) are rapidly becoming the preferred tools for creating “staged” political scenarios.
“The main intention behind a disinformation campaign is to manipulate voting choice,” says Dr. Din M Sumon Rahman, Head of Media Studies at ULAB. “Disinformation neatly feeds the confirmation bias of a decided voter while targeting swing voters who lack a strong opinion.”
Manipulative Tactics Exposed
The report details how 59% of posts used manipulative content to twist authentic facts. This includes distorting official inquiry findings and using “decontextualization”—where real videos are reframed to support false narratives, such as a simple seat-change request being portrayed as the harassment of a freedom fighter.
With the election only hours away, experts warn that the rapid spread of these fabrications threatens to shape public opinion through provocation rather than policy.
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