Calling on citizen warriors: Unite, resist, overcome
Today, wars are fought on many fronts and in many forms. Currently, we are facing a war of disinformation that is geared towards tarnishing our historic secular character, to depict us a nation of Islamic extremists, and to present us as a failed nation of anarchy and chaos without any rule of law. Even the most lay person in Bangladesh knows who is behind this and why this is being done. So, I'll not delve into it. But this will have long term implications on our foreign relations, our economy, and foremost our sovereignty. Please note that I said we are 'facing' a war. That is because we are not 'fighting' it yet. To fight it, we need the united efforts of the government, army, and all other institutions. Every citizen is important in fighting this information war. Because you have the power to fight it.
Information war is waged mostly on news and social media. We are exposed to it and it comes to us through our tv, through X, Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn other social media outlets. Every day we see misinformation, hateful speech or content, misrepresentation of country or population, racism, posts provoking violence. All of these are against policies of all the major social media outlets. So, if you report it, they will not publish it. And it is only a few clicks away. That much Bangladesh can expect from you.
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Here are the instructions from social media sites. You can choose from misinformation, hateful speech, inciting violence or other similar options.
YouTube:
YouTube reviews reported videos 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. A video can be reported at any time after it has been uploaded to YouTube. If our review team doesn't find any violations, no amount of reporting will change that and the video will remain on our site.
Sign in to YouTube.
Go to the video that you want to report.
Below the video, click More Report .
Select the reason that best fits the violation in the video.
Click NEXT.
Give any other details that may help the review team to make their decision. Include timestamps or descriptions of the violation, if possible.
Click REPORT.
Note: To check the status of a video that you have reported, visit your Reporting History
For more information: https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/2802027?hl=en&co=GENIE.Platform%3DAndroid
X(Twitter):
Navigate to the post you'd like to report.
Tap the icon located at the top of the post.
Select Report post and follow through the steps so we can gather all the relevant information about the issue.
Depending on the type of issue you're reporting, you may or may not hear back from us with an outcome.
For more information: https://help.x.com/en/safety-and-security/report-a-post
Facebook:
Go to the post you want to report.
Click in the top right of the post.
Click Report post.
To report, select the option that best describes how this post goes against our Community Standards. On the summary screen, click Submit.
Reports help us keep our platforms safe and help our systems learn when something isn't right. We remove things if they go against our Community Standards, but you can also Unfollow, Block or Unfriend to avoid seeing similar things in future. Click Done.
For more information: https://www.facebook.com/help/1380418588640631
LinkedIn:
Click the More icon in the right corner of the post on your LinkedIn homepage.
Click Report this post.
Select the applicable reason from the Why are you reporting this? pop-up window and follow the on-screen instructions.
Click Submit to proceed with reporting the post, or Back to review your options.
For more information: https://www.linkedin.com/help/linkedin/answer/a1344213/recognize-and-report-spam-inappropriate-and-abusive-content?lang=en
The other social media outlets have similar process. Please note that, you can report on a post, video, content, conversation, profile, or even the channel. You might think your reporting might not matter but imagine if there are millions of reports on contents that spread misinformation. We will fight back positively with evidence and facts. We shall overcome at the end.
Shahed Iqbal is a social activist who lives in the US.
Views expressed in this article are the author's own.
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