Information has never been so abundant. Yet finding information that can be trusted has rarely been more difficult.
The scale of the problem is now global. The World Economic Forum's Global Risks Report 2026 ranks misinformation and disinformation as the second most serious risk over the next two years, behind geoeconomic confrontation.
The report, based on the perceptions of more than 1,300 experts worldwide, notes that technological acceleration and the growing difficulty of distinguishing authentic from synthetic content are intensifying the challenge.
Artificial intelligence has made the problem more acute. Convincing audio, video and text can now be generated and distributed at unprecedented speed and scale. Fake news cards mimicking established media outlets can be produced within minutes, while social media systems can rapidly amplify content designed to provoke fear, anger, or polarization.
The result is not simply an increase in false information; it is a deeper crisis of trust in which distinguishing fact from fabrication becomes increasingly difficult.
The WEF report warns that realistic deepfakes and AI-generated misinformation and disinformation could further fragment the public sphere and make it increasingly difficult for citizens to distinguish truth from deception.
This year's International Day for Universal Access to Information, observed on September 28, comes against precisely this backdrop. The 2026 theme -- “Upholding Information Integrity in the Digital Age: The Role of Access to Information in Addressing Information Disorder” -- highlights the importance of access to reliable information at a time when digital technologies and artificial intelligence are making it increasingly difficult to distinguish authentic information from false or manipulated content.
In recent years, false claims about political developments, communal violence, and government decisions, fabricated press releases and AI-generated images and videos have repeatedly circulated online. Data from Dismislab and Rumor Scanner indicate that the spread of political and religious rumours in Bangladesh increased significantly in 2024 and 2025.
This phenomenon is generally discussed as a problem of misinformation or disinformation. But there is another dimension that deserves greater attention: The availability of reliable information from authoritative sources.
When citizens cannot easily find out what a public authority has decided, how public money has been spent, or what the official record actually says, an information vacuum is created. That vacuum can quickly be filled by rumours, speculation, and fabricated narratives.
This is where the Right to Information (RTI) Act, 2009 becomes particularly important.
RTI is not a fact-checking mechanism, and the Information Commission is not a fact-checking agency. Its role is different: To ensure that citizens can obtain information from authorities covered by the law, seek remedies when information is denied, and ensure compliance with the legal right to information.
But that role matters greatly in an age of information disorder. Reliable public information gives citizens something against which claims can be checked.
Consider a false claim about a government decision spreading rapidly online. One response may be to publish another statement denying it. A more durable response is to ensure that the actual decision, relevant documents, and other information are proactively available to the public. The easier it is to find the authoritative record, the less room there is for an information vacuum to be filled by falsehoods.
This makes the current state of Bangladesh's Information Commission particularly concerning.
Why the Information Commission matters
The Commission has remained without commissioners since 2024. A five-member selection committee has been reconstituted to recommend candidates for the posts of chief information commissioner and two information commissioners. However, no subsequent appointments have been publicly reported.
The Information Commission is the institution through which citizens can ultimately seek a remedy when their requests for information are denied after the prescribed appeal process. Without commissioners, that enforcement mechanism cannot function as intended. The burden of exercising a legal right therefore falls disproportionately on the citizen.
A right is meaningful only when there is an effective mechanism for enforcing it.
Civil society organizations and research-based organisations such as Transparency International Bangladesh (TIB), along with the RTI Forum, have repeatedly called for the Commission to be made fully functional and for commissioners to be appointed through a transparent process based on competence and independence.
These demands are part of a broader reform discussion about making the right to information work effectively in practice, rather than merely guaranteeing it on paper.
But restoring the Commission alone will not resolve the weaknesses in Bangladesh's RTI regime. The law itself needs reform.
Why the RTI law needs reform
The RTI Act was an important governance reform when it was enacted in 2009. But more than 15 years later, the information environment, technology, and expectations of citizens have changed considerably. The law must therefore evolve with these realities.
The RTI (Amendment) Ordinance, 2026 introduced several important changes, including provisions recognising electronic records, stronger proactive disclosure requirements, and increased penalties for certain violations. But important concerns remained. Among them was the exclusion of official note sheets from the definition of information.
The exclusion of note sheets is significant because such records can reveal how an administrative decision was processed, considered, and justified. If citizens can obtain the final decision but not the relevant record of how that decision was reached, an important part of institutional accountability remains outside public scrutiny.
The demand to include political parties as “authorities” was also not incorporated into the ordinance.
Political parties registered with the Election Commission are not currently treated as "authorities" under the RTI Act. Although registered political parties are required to submit annual financial reports to the Election Commission, citizens cannot directly seek information from political parties under the RTI framework.
This creates a gap in public accountability. Political parties participate in elections and play a central role in determining how the state is governed. Their financial transparency is therefore a legitimate matter of public interest.
Bringing political parties within an appropriate transparency framework does not mean that every aspect of their internal affairs should automatically become public. Rather, the principle should be that organizations whose activities have significant public consequences should be subject to reasonable and clearly defined transparency obligations.
Unfortunately, these important issues were not incorporated into the ordinance.
More importantly, the ordinance itself did not become permanent law. Introduced during the interim government following the July uprising, the ordinance was not enacted into permanent law after the elected government took office.
Under Article 93 of the Constitution, an ordinance ceases to have effect if it is not enacted within the constitutionally prescribed period after Parliament begins to function.
As the 13th Parliament did not pass the RTI Amendment Ordinance into law, it lapsed. The amendments it introduced therefore did not become part of the permanent RTI framework, leaving the RTI Act 2009 as the governing law.
A reform process that had introduced significant changes to the country's information-access regime therefore went back to square one.
Important changes to citizens' right to information should not remain dependent on temporary ordinances. Bangladesh needs a durable legal framework developed through meaningful consultation with citizens, journalists, researchers, civil society, and other stakeholders.
But legal reform alone will not solve the problem of information disorder.
Proactive disclosure matters
The government must also take proactive disclosure seriously. Public authorities should routinely publish decisions, budgets, expenditure, audit reports, project information, and other information of genuine public interest in accessible and usable formats.
This is particularly important because the technology for producing and distributing false information is evolving rapidly.
The WEF report notes that distinguishing authentic from synthetic content -- whether video, audio, or written material -- is becoming progressively more difficult, while AI-generated misinformation and disinformation can amplify existing social and political divisions.
Citizens, meanwhile, need greater awareness of their right to information and greater capacity to assess information critically.
Making the right to know work
We therefore need to think about RTI differently. It is not simply an anti-corruption tool. It is not merely a mechanism for journalists to obtain documents. And it is certainly not a substitute for professional fact-checking.
It is part of the information infrastructure of an informed society.
A citizen trying to determine whether a claim about public expenditure is true should be able to find the relevant government record.
A journalist investigating a public project should be able to seek the underlying information.
A community questioning the distribution of public benefits should have a lawful means of obtaining relevant records.
And when an authority refuses information without justification, there should be an independent institution capable of providing a remedy.
For that to happen, Bangladesh needs three things at the same time.
- An independent and effective Information Commission
- A modern and comprehensive RTI law
- A genuine culture of proactive disclosure.
The appointment of information commissioners should therefore be completed through a transparent process based on competence, independence, and freedom from partisan influence or nepotism.
The law should be further reviewed to address its remaining gaps, including the treatment of note sheets and the transparency of entities whose activities have significant public consequences.
Public authorities must also comply with their existing obligations to disclose information proactively.
The right to know should not depend on how persistent a citizen is, how well connected they are, or whether they can withstand the frustration of repeatedly asking an authority for information.
In an age when convincing falsehoods can be produced and distributed within minutes, access to reliable public information is part of the foundation on which citizens make sense of public affairs.
The answer to information disorder is not simply to produce more information. It is to make reliable information accessible, verifiable and accountable.
And for that, Bangladesh must make the right to know a right that works -- not merely a right that exists on paper.
Mathews Chiran is a former journalist and now works as a communications practitioner.