B.Mirror Desk: Bot armies roam freely on the country’s social media. Their dominance has disrupted the state, government, business, and personal lives. When they get a chance, these bot armies attack like locusts. They destroy all achievements in just a few seconds.

Most people are unaware of how they operate on social media. Combating this harmful bot army is the biggest challenge facing Bangladesh at present.

Many people may think that economic problems or the tense law and order situation are the country’s biggest crises.

But behind this visible crisis, a new and extremely dangerous threat is brewing, unnoticed by us. We are facing these challenges every day, every moment.

It is poisoning our state, society, and even our personal and family lives. Yet we accept it as fate, not looking for any permanent solution. This invisible enemy is none other than the social media bot army.

​The number of social media users in Bangladesh has grown exponentially over the past decade due to the availability of the internet and smartphones. But this digital world is no longer just a medium for free expression or communication; it has become a dirty place for political influence, artificial public opinion creation, commercial domination, and planned character assassination.

​Recently, Prime Minister’s Advisor on Posts, Telecommunications and Information Technology Rehan Asif Asad revealed a worrying piece of information at an event.

He said that about 60 to 70 percent of the total traffic in the country’s cyber world is mainly bots or artificial activities! He warned that analyzing cyberbullying or online reactions without understanding this brutal reality risks reaching seriously wrong conclusions. Because, a large part of the huge comments, reactions and interactions that we see on Facebook or other media are not from real people (organic).

​Picture of horror: This bot army is now so powerful and well-organized that they are launching cyber attacks targeting important people in the state. They are creating false negative public opinion against the government’s good and public welfare-oriented decisions in an instant.

They are spreading well-planned false propaganda against prominent figures in society, tarnishing their image.

The most alarming thing is that this cycle is endangering the lives of women by humiliating and harassing them.

Although they are not very numerous in number, they have misused technology to create an ‘airborne loyalist force’ whose members are not humans, but robots.

​It is important to know what bots are and how they work. The word ‘bot’ comes from ‘robot’. It is a type of software program or algorithm that can automatically behave like a human on the Internet. When thousands or millions of fake profiles are used together to implement a specific purpose or agenda, it is called a ‘bot army’. Their job is to target a specific person and abuse them, spread propaganda, or artificially praise someone.

This evil force of the digital world is basically divided into two parts. One is the automated bots. The other is the human troll army.

Automated bots are completely controlled by computer programs. They become automatically active when certain ‘keywords’ are set. For example, as soon as a post is made with the name of a specific person or country, these bots go there and paste the pre-set comments. Currently, bots with artificial intelligence (AI) are more dangerous. They do not just copy and paste, but are also capable of creating relevant and different comments like humans.

Human Troll Army: These are real people, but they work using fake IDs. They are recruited for political purposes or in exchange for large sums of money. Each person controls 10 to 20 fake IDs. As soon as they receive instructions, they form a group and jump to a specific link. Although they are not technically perfect bots, they are known as ‘bot armies’ to the general public.

Bots generally control the cyber world through three main strategies. For example, changing public opinion: They mislead the thinking of ordinary people by making hundreds of positive or negative comments within seconds of an event.

Defamation and slander: These are used to defame a person or organization. When thousands of fake IDs use the same language to abuse or slander, the general public becomes confused and assumes that it is true.

Coordinated Inauthentic Behavior (CIB): In Meta or Facebook terms, this is called coordinated inauthentic behavior. They file thousands of ‘reports’ together to shut down a page or ID. Seeing this, Facebook’s powerful algorithm gets confused and automatically blocks that ID.

There are some easy signs to identify a bot in a professional way. The unusual speed of this sign is that if a news or post gets 100 or more comments within just 5 seconds of its publication, it is definitely a bot. It is impossible for a human to read and comment so quickly.

Exactly the same comment: If you see that the comments from 10-15 different people’s IDs are exactly the same, then it is a bot manipulation.

​Nonsense Profiles: These IDs have no personal life or real identity. The profile picture is of a celebrity, flower or bird. There are no posts of their own on the timeline, only posts of others are shared, and their number of friends or followers is extremely abnormal.

Why is this a big threat to the state and society?

​Bot armies are the biggest threat to a healthy democracy in the present era. They can easily establish truth as false and falsehood as truth. They systematically make any good decision of the government controversial. When thousands of identical comments and campaigns with the same tone are seen immediately after a political event or sensitive news is published, ordinary users think that the entire society may be in favor of this opinion.

In reality, this artificial wave affects human psychology. In psychology, it is called the ‘Bandwagon Effect’ and in political communication, it is called ‘Astroturfing’; that is, artificially creating an environment in which it seems that this is the spontaneous public opinion.

This is a severe digital fraud. Even before creating a ‘mob’ or mass beating situation against an individual on the ground, the bot also makes them controversial and attackable on social media.

​Our society still lacks ‘digital media literacy’ or the culture of fact-checking. As a result, this bot-driven propaganda is easily inciting people’s emotions, political beliefs and social divisions. This dirty trick is currently being widely used in Bangladesh; where content is first created through ‘deepfake’ or misleading technology and then bots are deployed to make it credible.

Democracy is not just about voting; it is based on free expression, accurate information, and an informed citizenry. Just as strikes, violence, or the silencing of opponents are harmful to democracy, this digital culture of artificial public opinion creation is equally dangerous.

To break free from this bondage, it is important to take three steps now:

​1. Accountability of tech giants: Big tech companies including Meta (Facebook), Google, etc. need to increase their ability to understand the Bengali language and our local social reality. Bangladesh needs to sign bilateral agreements with these platforms now and arrange for them to set up local offices in Bangladesh.

​2. Strict and effective laws: Strict and specific legal action must be taken immediately against organized digital propaganda, spreading false information, and troll farms. If public opinion continues to be artificially influenced in this way, the rule of law and justice will be undermined.

​3. Digital Media Literacy: The most important thing is awareness. Students should be taught fact-checking, critical thinking, and responsible online behavior right from the school and college curriculum.

The government must make a final decision now—will the free and truthful flow of information be ensured to the people in this country, or will the state and society remain forever hostage to this Apsara bot army?