Today, people can hardly avoid social networking sites, smartphones, and the wider online environment. This growing vulnerability can distort public debate and weaken social trust. Human perception is psychological and develops through daily reactions to events, statements, and rumours. It is now shaped not just by oratory, print media, and television, but by a faster, more affective information landscape.
Often, fraudulent claims are presented as credible as Facebook posts, YouTube videos, TikTok snippets, fabricated news cards, and AI- generated material compete for attention. In Bangladesh, this risk has become clearer during political transition, election-related mobilization, student politics and debates over national sovereignty.
Information warfare and the cognitive battlefield
NATO's scientific advisory body describes cognitive warfare as manipulating an opponent's cognition to weaken the will and ability to make decisions. There are no boundaries in the conflict of information warfare. It entails manipulating, warping, magnifying, or suppressing information to affect public opinion. The parts of the human mind -- emotion, memory, fear, values and judgement -- are the primary targets.
The human mind therefore becomes the battlefield. The objective is not always to persuade individuals to believe a particular lie. A more effective objective may be to induce confusion. This undermines reasoned discussion and makes emotionally fulfilling narratives more appealing than substantiated facts.
In Bangladesh, information warfare typically operates in tandem, using multiple linked approaches:
- Unverified or deceitful claims spread rapidly to influence public opinion before facts are established
- Emotionally charged issues, such as violence, religion, nationalism, and threats to women and children, are employed to elicit strong responses.
- Journalists, minorities, opposition figures, and foreign actors are portrayed as threats to national interests.
- Recurrent transmissions across several media create an illusion of reality via habitual exposure.
- Distrust in political, media, and electoral institutions is exploited and deepened.
Is Bangladesh at risk?
There is a large and active online population in Bangladesh, which is especially vulnerable to the issues of political polarization, social and religious sensitivities, and media literacy gap.
Information can be false and proliferate from platform to platform before being verified by authorities. Stories of religion, nationalism, violence, and social grievance can easily foster fear and anger, division and distrust.
Social media has great advantages to it. It provides rapid information, gives a voice to the voiceless, and uncovers the truth, where traditional media may fail. However, Facebook is also a hub for misinformation in Bangladesh due to this openness.
Rumour Scanner reported 4,195 instances of misinformation in 2025, which was approximately 30% percent higher than in 2024, out of which 3,806 were found on Facebook. It also recorded a highest monthly total of 521 cases in December 2025, 86% of which were political cases.
A malicious rumour can easily and rapidly break out from the screen and become a real threat. Accusations and reactions can be triggered well before the truth is known, by false allegations of religious insult, communities, child abductions, or even political conspiracies that can provoke crowds.
That is why it is not just what people believe which is dangerous, but what their beliefs can trigger.
It can be a community reaction -- fear of a neighbourhood, hostility between communities, pressure on public institutions, or lack of trust in public institutions.
The psychological damage may have occurred by the time that a rectification is supplied.
The layers of AI
Artificial intelligence has blurred the line between real and fabricated content online. AI-generated videos, manipulated images, and convincing fake messages can appear authentic, prompting people to believe and share them before checking the facts.
Before the February 2026 election, researchers found many AI-manipulated posts intended to mislead voters. Some invented events that never occurred; others used fake images or news cards designed to resemble genuine journalism.
Deepfake videos also showed political leaders making statements they had never made. Female candidates were targeted with sexually explicit fake images, while other AI content attempted to create fear between religious communities.
The real peril of AI is not that every machine-generated image will fool everyone, but that it has dramatically lowered the cost of producing convincing deception.
Once, creating a realistic fake video required specialized equipment, technical expertise, and substantial effort. Nowadays, there are tools that can create a fake voice, image or short video within minutes.
For ordinary users, and even for professional fact-checkers, the amount of suspicious content can be very difficult to identify. It also helps a malicious actor to dismiss true evidence as a deepfake, as the researchers call it, and therefore to benefit from a more general “liar's dividend.”
Cross-border relations exist as a challenge to it. In 2025, Rumour Scanner reported 155 cases of disinformation regarding Bangladesh that was spread by external media and social media accounts. The information battle is not restricted within the country’s boundaries, but the narratives from external sources affect the minds and psychology of Bangladeshis.
Misinformation, disinformation and malinformation
The terms are interchangeable, but the difference is important. Misinformation is inaccurate information or information that is false, but not necessarily done with purposeful intent. A person who sends a re-posted old flood video that purports to be from the current disaster, could be spreading misinformation.
Disinformation is information that is knowingly and intentionally false for the purpose of deceiving, influencing or harming someone. An example is a fabricated quote by a political leader.
Malinformation is factual information that has been taken out of its context to mislead, harm or sway, which includes revealing private information to intimidate.
A coordinated entity may create deception, and the general citizen may then disseminate misinformation, believing it to be truthful. An original picture can have a deceptive caption, turning a reality into a tool for deceit.
Recognizing these variations will enable the community to react intelligently. Not all incorrect information is from an enemy, it can be every unverified share that can reinforce a harmful campaign.
A theory of the origins of false beliefs
As psychology demonstrates, people tend to see, validate, and share what confirms their political, religious, or social opinions. They may not accept corrective information, as it threatens them with an attack on their identity or community.
Emotion intensifies the issue. Fear, indignation, and outrage reduces fact-checking. Therefore, rumours generally incite violence, religious feuds, threats to women, and children, or national sovereignty.
These are statements that are meant to develop feelings, not thinking. The message “share before it is deleted” or “the media will not show you this” creates an urgency and does not give time to think.
Repeatedly seeing a claim on Facebook, TikTok, YouTube, and message groups may lead to a false impression of truth. People are seeing what they already believe in, as like-minded pages and online groups form echo chambers. Fake news has a reach that is greater than fact-checks.
Lessons from the Bangladesh Army
Bangladesh Army regularly observes October of each year as Cyber Security Awareness Month. Various awareness programs, seminars, workshops, and training take place during this month, more than in any other month.
All offices and installations use the slogan on cyber protection on top of the letters issued or circulated. Instructions on security breaches through social media, awareness against misinformation, disinformation, and malinformation are circulated and communicated to everybody regularly in each darbar, central motivational parade, and so on.
Thus, individuals are now more aware, and they are encouraged to report a security breach whenever it has been noticed.
The shared responsibility and the way forward
Independent fact-checking organizations like Rumor Scanner and FactWatch provide a valuable public record of false claims. Before a correction is issued, a deepfake video may reach a very large audience.
Thus, an effective response is necessary, and it must be timely and transparent. The news outlets should have verification desks and make clear corrections to readers and indicate how they were reached. We also need technology platforms to make synthetic content transparent and take effective action against concerted efforts of manipulation.
However, citizens too have a critical role to play in controlling misinformation. There must be questions asked before sharing a sensational post like: Who published it first? Do credible sources support the claim? Is the post evidence or an incitement to anger and urgency? A reverse image search, a fact check of the original source, or a fact check on a trusted fact-checking website can often prevent false information from spreading. Cognitive warfare in Bangladesh will continue, but public resistance can render manipulation much less effective. AI could be utilized to identify suspicious content at the earliest. Platforms, journalists, fact-checkers, and authorities can take a coordinated approach to verify them based on common guidelines. Media literacy and responsible journalism are also essential to public trust and these are tools that can help to enhance the response.
Colonel ASM Nazmul Haque, psc is in the Bangladesh Army.