G M Mourtoza, Founder and Director, Centre for Communication and Development of Bangladesh (CCD Bangladesh)

Hate speech and misinformation are being spread rapidly in Bangladesh and social media has become a big platform for circulating hate speech, misleading information and rumours. Due to online hate speech a lot of unexpected incidents and violence happen at the grassroots level in the country. This causes uncountable losses of general people. But in most of the cases the religious and ethnic minority people get victimized. As community radio is playing important role of meeting information needs of local people, community radio can also play significant and vital role to sensitize and educate general people about freedom of speech and hate speech as well. It has already proved by a project that we have implemented in 2022. I would like to present the findings and results of this project among the global community through this important workshop.