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An Exclusive Interview with the Chairman, Bangladesh Institute for

Information Literacy and Sustainable Development (BIILSD)

Dr. M Aslam Alam is a former Senior Secretary to the Government and Rector of
Bangladesh Public Administration Training Centre (BPATC). He was also Secretary,
Financial Institutions Division (FID) of the Ministry of Finance, and Secretary, Ministry
of Disaster Management and Relief, Government of Bangladesh. He has published
extensively on training and development, public administration, climate change and

disaster reduction, information literacy and sustainable development. Currently, he is
the chairman and executive director of the Bangladesh Institute for Information
Literacy and Sustainable Development (BIILSD).

1. What is your opinion regarding disinfodemic and how it affects our daily life?
‘Disinfodemic' is the pandemic of disinformation. Pandemic is the occurrence of a disease affecting
a large number of people in a wide geographical area. Disinformation is considered a disease
affecting the whole population in a country or the World. UNESCO defines 'disinformation' as 'false
and misleading contents', which may lead to harmful consequences whether it was intended or not.

Disinformation includes misinformation and fake news.

The Guardian noted (7 Oct 2017) that “fake news is a buzzword of our time, but its impact can be
significant. Not only can it threaten our social order, our confidence in governance, or our trust in
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journalism, but it has also been reported to distort children’s view of the world.” The AI-powered 4

industrial revolution is knocking on our door. Our physical world is becoming more and more
intertwined with the digital world, which is the most fertile ground for disinformation. The Covid-19
has pushed us further towards the digital world. Thus we have become more vulnerable to the

disinfodemic. Although its origin is in the digital world, it is a real-life threat, which may cause
anxiety, trauma, ill-health, economic hardship, violence, and death.

2. Do you think that the issue of ‘disinfodemic’ has been addressed properly in our society?

Not at all. Disinfodemic is little understood in our society. There are not enough efforts to understand

and address the issue. It is evident from the fact that every year we have at least one case of large-scale
violence arising out of disinformation propagated through social media. Such occurrences took place
at Ramu Upazila of Cox's Bazar in 2012, at Bonogram of Pabna in 2013, at Homna of Cumilla in
2014, at Nasirnagar of Brahmanbaria in 2016, at Gangachara in Rangpur in 2017, and at Burhanuddin

of Bhola in 2019. It has become a recurrent event. We don't see any concerted effort to prevent this
menace. Instigators/ beneficiaries and their agents are rarely identified and punished.

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