Reporter: Liza Gupta
The third call of Online Advocacy Campaign was introduced featuring Miss Farah Naj Jahan from Bangladesh (Co-founder, Fake News Checker) and Miss Sohini Jana (Director, JKPI). Miss Farah Naj Jahan is representing online platform for fake news checker to combat fake new, hate speech and misinformation and to raise awareness on how misinformation is targeting communities and creating unsafe space for them. This Call for Online Advocacy Campaign focused on bringing a safe platform for the people of Afghanistan and ensuring their dignity. Both advocates discussed the power of the Advocacy Campaign to raise peoples voice without being insensitive towards them and discussed certain guidelines in that matter.
What kind of work do you do at Fake News Checker in order to carry out effective news campaign?
Miss Jahan addressed that she co-founded this campaign in 2018 along with Mr. Nath Kumar Mishra. Fake News Checker is a platform funded by UNDP Bangladesh and it works to increase public awareness to prevent the spread of fake news. She further added that Fake News Checker has joined trainings of UNOC, UNESCO, UNDP and even conducts online and offline training on how to identify fake news, pictures, videos and speech to religious leaders, adults, school and college going students.
In today’s age, social media is a major public opinion generation tool and it can be used to shape major public decisions that have impact on many lives. What do you think is the power of Online Advocacy Campaign which is led by the youth to provide platform for raising voices of the people of Afghanistan.
Miss Jahan replied that Fake News Checker is an online tool to empower people and to combat fake news which is working in both online and offline mode. She addressed the fact that worldwide, people are getting news of Afghanistan through online modes and there has been a lot of spread of fake news. She advocated that Online Advocacy Campaign is a platform that eliminates this situation where the youth are effectively campaigning all over the world and maintaining compassionate sight and ensuring safety and security of the people.
How do you think Online Advocacy Campaign can serve the purpose of raising the voice of people without being insensitive towards them.
Miss Jahan opined that The Online Advocacy Campaign needs to be more compassionate, secure and careful to not show the insensitive situations. She further opined that there should be online advocacy guidelines under the digital media in order to focus on the sufferings and not to be insensitive towards the Afghan people. The digital platforms should help them to raise their voice by ensuring safety and security and should work in that way which should be
not traumatize other people.
How should the international community follow the guidelines to make sure that they are holding dignity of the people of Afghanistan.
The session ended by this discussion wherein Miss Sohini Jana advocated that there should not be any graphic images of vulnerable community who are at risk, or being harassed or are struggling which can hurt the sentiments of people. Miss Jahan added that the whole community should seek attention of people and understand their situation and not represent things that would be insensitive towards them. She also advocated for Signature campaigns that would highlight their situation and create a safe space for them.